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Science and the Bible; 



OB, THE 



MOSAIC CREATION AND MODERN DISCOVERIES. 



Eev. Herbert w. 'morris, a. m., 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN NEWINGTON COLLEGIATE INSTITUTION. 



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ZIEGLER & McCURDY, 

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.; CINCINNATI, 0.; CHICAGO, III.; ST. LOUIS, Mo. 
SPRINC FIELD, Mass. 

1871. 



~3'56S( 
17 

871 



./17 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

Rev. HERBERT W. MORRIS, A. M.. 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



S. A. GEORGE & CO., 

STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS 

PHILADELPHIA. 



PREFACE. 




WO great Volumes have been laid before man for his 
instruction, and from which his ideas and science all 
have been derived — the material Works, and the 
inspired Word of God. These being the productions 
of the same wise and unchangeable Author, the harmony- 
subsisting between them is universal and complete. Both 
have for their end the manifestation of the invisible Deity. 
While in the Bible we have a verbal revelation of the wisdom 
and power and goodness of God, in material Nature we have 
a pictorial revelation of the same, " the invisible things of Him 
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
power and Godhead." 

Though both these revelations date from a period far back 
in the past, yet each retains, after the lapse of all the ages, its 
original interest and freshness undiminished. The Bible, 
though the oldest of books, is confessedly ever new and de- 
lightful to those who have been taught to enter into its spirit. 
The expanded pages of Creation, likewise, present us with a 
study that is as marvellous and attractive now as it was six 
thousand years ago. We of to-day discover as much to admire 
in the " great deep," in " the precious things of the everlasting 



4 PREFACE. 

hills/' in the overspreading vegetation, and in the living 
tenants of the earth, as did Adam when he walked forth to 
survey the beauties of Eden while arrayed in the glitter of its 
earliest dews. Neither the wealth of meaning, nor the depth 
of interest, treasured up in these divine volumes, will ever be 
exhausted. 

In the following pages the study of these two books is com- 
bined; and the main design of the Writer, while all along 
indicating their harmony, is to illustrate the inspired Record 
of Creation by the marvellous developments of modern science 
in the various departments of Nature — to bring before the 
Reader, from among the abounding materials of each Day's 
work, such objects and scenes and agencies as present striking 
displays of the omnipotence, wisdom and beneficence of the 
Creator, and convincing evidences of his universal presence and 
unremitting agency. Such a presentation of the phenomena of 
nature in elucidation of the sacred Word, it is believed, will 
be found by every reflecting person, not only deeply interesting 
as a study, but also in the highest degree calculated to expand 
the views, enlighten the judgment, and improve the heart. In 
thus devoutly studying the Word of God in connection with 
his wonderful works, we discover the conceptions and plans, 
the reasonings and purposes, of God ; and, to the extent of our 
capacity, His mind becomes our mind, and His science our 
science. The more we investigate what He hath done, the 
more shall we know of Him, and the more we shall admire 
what we know, and love what we admire. 

In regard to the scientific illustrations offered, it may be 
proper to state, that the Author entered nearly every quarry 



PREFACE. 5 

within his reach that promised materials suitable to his pur- 
pose, and fashioning them after his own plan, inserted them in 
the edifice rearing under his hands. Anxious, however, to 
profit all classes of readers, he has, in general, abstained from 
the more abstruse refinements of science, and, as far as 
practicable, from the use of learned technicalities; he feels 
assured, however, that the work on this account will prove 
none the less interesting or profitable to those who may chance 
to be familiar with both. Great pains have been taken to 
obtain the latest and most accurate results of science in every 

department of the subject. 

H. W. M. 
Rochester, N. Y., 

January, 1871. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



i. Adam and Eve in their Innocence, Frontispiece. 

2. Genealogy of Plants and Animals, . . Page 38 

3. Ideal Scene in the Carboniferous Period, . . 39 

4. Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus, 40 

5. Reign of Quadrupeds, . . . . . 42 

6. Chaos coming on, . . . . . . . 51 

7. Temple of Jupiter Serapis, . . . . -59 

8. The Waters divided from the Waters, . . .99 

9. Thunder-storm, 127 

10. Snow-flakes, 134 

11. Theory of the Tides, 151 

12. Crystal Forms, . 171 

13. Forest of the Coal Period, 174 

14. Fossil Vegetation found in Coal, . . . .176 

15. Mount Ararat, 180 

16. Tropical Forest, . .226 

17. Comparative size of the Sun and Planets, . . 241 

18. Spots and Facul^e of the Sun, .... 245 

19. The Moon's Surface (two phases) . . . .257 

20. Eclipses and Annual Path of the Moon, . . 266 

21. Planets — Mars, Saturn, and Earth, . . . .272 

22. Diagram of the Solar System, . . . . . 308 



8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

23. Two Remarkable Comets, . 

24. Samples of Nebulae, . 

25. Star Clusters, or Telescopic Views 

26. The Whale, .... 

27. The Cuttle-fish, 

28. Let Fowl multiply in the Earth, 

29. Advancing Clouds of Locusts, . 

30. Habitations of Termites or White 

31. Domestic Animals, 

32. The Tiger, 



of Nebula, 



Ants, 



3 2 5 
346 

347 
3 6 4 
393 
4i3 
455 
458 

477 
492 



CONTENTS. 



Preface • 3 

List of Illustrations 7 

The Subject and Design of the Work stated 19 

THE BEGINNING. 

Sublimity of the opening sentence of the Bible — Origination of matter — Ancients 
thought the Earth eternal — A beginning proved— From the composition of 
the elements — From the character of molecules— From the derivation of 
strata — From the succession of fossil species — From the structure of the 
solar system — When the beginning was, not stated — Earth's original form 
unknown — Nebular idea — Evidences of a molten condition — Atmosphere of 
steam — Temperature reduced — Surface solidified and fractured — Prodigious 
rains and floods — Alternate upheavals and submergences — Formation of 
stratified rocks — Life introduced — First plants and animals in the sea — 
Crinoids and Stone-flowers — Corals and Trilobites — Fish dynasty — Wonders 
of primeval vegetation — Traces of insects — First tracks of birds — Reptile 
dynasty — Their frightful character — Reign of quadrupeds — Their huge di- 
mensions — Mastodon, Deinotherium, Megatherium — Elephants, Rhinoce- 
roses and Hippopotamuses roaming the British Isles — Animals advancing 
to higher types — Soil and climate improving — " The beginning " incalcula- 
bly remote — Geological periods a parallel to astronomical distances 25 

Reflections. The Beginning an amazing era — God the alone existence 
— Immutable and impassive — Knowing the end from the beginning — All co- 
operating to advance his plan and accomplish his purpose 45 

THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

History — Connection and date — The globe a dark and watery waste — This 
doubted by some — Meaning of Tohu vavohu — Duration of this chaotic state 
— Fish still in the sea — Portions of land above water — Certain animals 
possibly survived — How the desolation was brought about — Depression of 
the land, or a slight upheaval of the ocean beds adequate — Objections 
answered — Present elevation of the continents — Earth's crust ever heaving 
and sinking — Trees cross the watery chaos in their seeds — Animal remains 
not always a connected chain — Evidences of a chaos at the period in ques- 
tion — Change of climate — General extinction of plants and animals — Great 
subsidences of ocean beds — 200 islands disappear — New flora and fauna 

9 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

found — Recapitulation of arguments — Mosaic record confirmed — Harmony 
of this and former catastrophies — Design of second verse — Its import — 

Hovering of the Spirit — What meant 51 

Reflections. Physical chaos emblematical of the moral disorder of the 
world — Final issue improbable — As out of the former, so in the end, out of 
the latter, order, beauty and glory shall result , 73 

THE FIRST DAY. 

History — Beginning of the Mosaic creation — The " Six Days " literal — Reasons 
for this — No adequate necessity for a figurative interpretation — The literal 
the most consistent sense — The creations of each Day may stand representa- 
tive of similar former creations — Objection to progressive creation — Beauty 
of the narrative — " God said " — No vocal utterance — Exposition 79 

LIGHT. 

An etherial element — Two theories — The first production — Life-blood of Nature 
— Vegetation in darkness — Influences of light on plants — On animals — 
Essential to bodily development — To mental vigour — To recovery from 

disease — Hospitals 90 

Reflections. Primeval night an emblem of the condition of a fallen 
Race — Parallel between the natural and moral illumination of the world — 
Sun of Righteousness to illumine the whole earth — Why so long delay ? 93 

THE SECOND DAY. 

History — Its brevity — Exposition of terms — What embraced 99 

THE ATMOSPHERE. 
Aerial ocean — Its dimensions — Density and rarity — Experience of aeronauts — 
Enormous pressure — A compound — Gases in the same proportion every- 
where — A change injurious or fatal — A thousand proportions possible, one 
only suitable — Relative weights of gases — This of vital moment — Twofold 

character of oxygen — Innocuous and consuming 101 

Reflections. On the mass of the atmosphere — On its pressure — On its 
composition — All marvels of wisdom and demonstrations of benevolence 105 

THE WINDS. 

How produced — Simple experiment — Sea and land breezes — Polar and equa- 
torial currents — Variable winds — The Trades — How produced — -An inverse 

process — Monsoon — Sirocco, harmattan, typhoon, cyclone 107 

Reflections. Nothing merely capricious — All things governed by infal- 
lible laws — As the wind, so the Spirit, is known by his effects 113 

EVAPORATION. 
This process concerned in establishing the firmament — To be in perpetual opera- 
tion — What would have been man's plan of watering the earth? — How 
water is made to ascend the skies — Formation of clouds — How conveyed 
where needed — Discharge their cargoes by rule and measure — The method 
most admirable — Quantity evaporated immense — Illustration from the Dead 
Sea — Total amount of evaporation — Moisture in the air essential to organ- 
ised existences — Our protection from intense and fatal cold 115 



CONTENTS. 11 

PAGE 

Reflections. Unity of plan in Nature — Magnificence of the water- 
works of Heaven — Scenery of the firmament — Gathering thunder clouds — 
Splendors of the setting sun — A type of prayer, and its gracious returns 123 

LIGHTNING AND THUNDER. 
Electricity diffused through all nature — Its potency — Generated by winds — 
Positive and negative — Lightning and thunder in miniature — A storm — 
Appalling experiment with November mist — Lightning rods, and nature's 

conductors — Benefits of thunderstorms 127 

Reflections. Manifold and mysterious operations of electricity — In- 
spires awe and reverence — Yet speaks of Heaven's benignity as clearly as 
the sunbeam 132 

SNOW AND HAIL. 
Composed of frozen vapors — Beauty and variety of snow flakes — Composition of 
hail — Snow a protection to vegetation in winter — Renders high latitudes 

habitable — Snow-water fertilizing to the soil 134 

Reflections. Every flake formed with art and skill Divine — Charms of 
winter — Lakes and rivers converted into mirrors — Hills and valleys man- 
tled in pure white 136 

THE AIR AS A MEDIUM. 
To the Air we owe the delicious blue of the skies — The softening shades of the 
landscape — The morning and evening twilight — It is the means of flight to 

birds — The medium of speech, smell, and music 138 

Reflections. Theology in the firmament — A concourse of designs and 
contrivances — A magazine of adaptations to the various organs of animal 
existences 139 

THE THIRD DAY. 

History — A scene of grandeur — Exposition — What embraced 145 

THE SEA. 
Proportion of Land and Water — Reasons— Hills and valleys beneath the ocean 
— Its saltness — Tides — Vertical and lateral currents — Streams — Gulf stream 
and its wonders — Its conflict with a Polar giant — Other streams — Beneficent 

results 148 

Reflections. Symbol of the Infinite — Plan — Relations and ends — 
New earth, but no sea 159 

THE DRY LAND. 
Elevated after fixed design — Outlines and their importance — Altitudes and their 
effects — Relative positions — Polar waters — Design in each portion and 
feature — Vegetative covering — Mineral stores — Metals — Gems — Crystaliza- 
tion — God's geometry — Brilliancy and perfection — Diversity out of unity... 163 

Reflections. On Salt, its abundance — On Coal, its marvellous history — 
On Iron, its admirable qualities 174 

MOUNTAINS. 
Parts of one grand scheme — Principal chains — Thrust up — Not deformities- 
Manifold advantages — Ararat 180 



12 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Reflections. Built by rule, and weighed in a balance — Schools and 
libraries — Sacred mountains witnesses for God 187 

RIVERS. 

Vital fluid — Circulation — System of drainage — In Europe — In Asia — In Africa 

— In America — Channels of commerce — Scenic beauty 191 

Reflections. Significant representation — Sacred rivers and their asso- 
ciations — Similitude of human life 195 

VEGETATION. 
A new thing — Absurdity of Atheism — Order — Moses in advance of Linnaeus — 
Universal spread of vegetation — Endless variety — Properties of grass — 
General color — Every plant a laboratory. 1. Roots, their twofold office. 
2. Leaves, their forms and functions. 3. Flowers, their delicacy and beauty 
— complication of parts — organs of reproduction — instinctive movements — 
luminosity — regulation of the sun's heat — the perfection of workmanship. 
4. Seeds — contain the plant in embryo — diversity of seed-vessels — fecundity 
of plants — dispersion of seeds — germination — longevity of seeds. 5. Edi- 
bles — variety and profusion — capacity for improvement 197 

Reflections., Divine chemistry — Infinitude of contrivances and adapta- 
tions — " Consider the Lilies " — Admonitions from the zizania and ustilago 
foetida — Lessons from leaf and flower and blade of grass 226 

THE FOURTH DAY. 

History — Exposition of the Record — Time measurers — Disadvantages of a 

world at rest 235 

THE SUN. 
Ancient idea of celestial movements — Sun's distance — Magnitude — Constitution 
— Spots — Faculse — Flames — Gravitation — Action of gravitation and centri- 
fugal force illustrated — Amount of the Sun's gravitation — Light — Theories 
of Newton and Laplace — Velocity of light — Production of colors — Helio- 
graphy — The principle of light still a mystery — Other results of the 

Sun's agency 240 

Reflections. Impressive display of Eternal wisdom and power — Em- 
blem of the Sun of Righteousness 255 

THE MOON. 
In herself a dark globe — Illumined by the sun — Has three distinct motions — 
Distance from the earth — Her dimensions — How near brought to us by 
telescopes — Photographs of her sphere — General aspect of her surface — Her 
caverns, mountains and precipices — Mount Eratosthenes — Her plains — Has 
no atmosphere, curious effects — Seasons and climate — Eclipses and their 

phenomena — Eclipses establishing dates in ancient history 258 

Reflections. A new world — A suggestive orb — An instructive emblem 
of the Church 270 

THE PLANETS. 
Planets and fixed stars, how distinguished— Number of planets— Mercury, its 



CONTENTS. 13 

PAGE 

distance, periods, density, &c. — Venus, its position, dimensions, and other 
phenomena. 

The Earth the third planet — Its orbit, and motion in it — Annual period 
adapted to plantal and animal constitution — Diurnal revolution — Variation 
of days and nights, and of seasons, how produced — Civil day — Axial rota- 
tion undeviating — Diurnal period adapted to the nature of vegetation and 
living creatures — Evidence of foresight and design — Distance from the sun 
— This measured to suit the nature and wants of terrestrial existences — 
Dimensions, density and gravitation — All adapted to the strength of 
existing organizations — Consequence of increasing or diminishing gravita- 
tion — Foregoing particulars, a demonstration of our planet being the 
production of Infinite wisdom and power. 

Mars — Favorable for observation — Distance, periods, and density — Simi- 
larity to the earth — Has seas and continents, islands and mountains, clouds 
and rain and snow. Asteroids — Their number, distance, size, gravitation. 
Jupiter — Distance, velocity, periods, dimensions, density — Its belts — Indica- 
tions of water and atmosphere — Interesting peculiarities — Has four Satel- 
lites — A miniature system — A magnificent spectacle. Saturn — Its distance, 
periods, velocity, and dimensions — Light and heat — Small density — Its 
Rings — A marvellous mechanism — Has eight Satellites — Grandeur of its 
nocturnal firmament — A thrilling exhibition. Uranus — Its remoteness, 
dimensions and periods — Degree of light and heat — Furnished with six 
Satellites — The position of their orbits, and the direction of their motion, a 
singularity and a mystery. Neptune — The remarkable manner of its dis- 
covery — Its immense distance — Its size and annual period. 

Review — Are these great globes inhabited? — Some return a negative 
answer — Their difficulties — Every clime, every corner of the earth has its 
inhabitants — Planet populations not impossible — The affirmative — Numer- 
ous and striking analogies — The more rational supposition 272 

Reflections. Our place in the Creation — Humility — Littleness of man 
— Greatness of God 305 

THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 
A complete and harmonious scheme — Foresight, calculation and plan clearly 
exhibited — In the general laws governing the planets — In the means and 
method of their illumination — In the character of their orbits — In their 
rotation upon their axes — In their orbital velocities — In the adjustments 
made for the stability of the system — The Presiding agency of the Creator 
— The view held by Newton, Bacon, Herschel and others — God the efficient 

cause of all motion 309 

Reflections. Grounds and encouragements to repose entire confidence 
in God 323 

COMETS. 
Members of the Solar System — Their number — Appearance — Bodies of extreme 
tenuity — Change their forms — Revolve in all kinds of orbits — Traverse 
every region of the Heavens — Move with every imaginable velocity — Their 

extreme eccentricity — Periods of revolution — A field of great mystery 325 

Reflections. The unknown greater than the known — Groundless appre- 
hensions — All-embracing Providence — Distant influences combined — Comets 
dethroning kings, deciding battles, and shaping the destiny of nations 331 



14 CONTENTS. 

THE FIXED STARS. page 

Planets as near neighbors — Stars incomparably more remote — Distance of a few 
calculated — Limits of the Universe undiscoverable — Changes and revolu- 
tions observed among the most distant stars — Double, triple, and multiple 
stars — Stars of different colors — Stupendous dimensions of stars — Their 
number— Milky Way, a nebula — 3,000 other nebulae — Each star, like the 
sun, the centre of a system — Law and order prevailing throughout visible 

space 338 

Reflections. Evidences of God's universal presence — His boundless em- 
pire — The redemption of one fallen world — A miracle of loving kindness.... 350 

THE FIFTH DAY. 

History — Creation progressive and ascending — Animal organizations now intro- 
duced — Life a mystery — Peculiar interest of animated beings — Exposition 
of the Record — Water pre-eminently the seat of life 359 

WHALES. 

Remarkable creatures — Connecting link — Of enormous size and strength — Fit- 
ness to inhabit frozen oceans — Faculties — Habits — Affection 364 

Reflections. On the perfection of the Divine workmanship even in 
these monsters 367 

FISHES. 
Number of species — Variety in size and character — Formed for ease and rapidity 
of motion — Their covering, its suitableness, beauty and perfection — Peculiar 
mode of respiration — Their eyes adapted for their dense element, and for 
their several habits — Sense of touch and taste feeble — Smelling and hearing 
acute — Their sagacity — Long-lived — Excel in strength — Astonishing in- 
stincts — Abounding fecundity — Migrations distant and unerring — Contrast 
between fishes and land animals — Means of attack and defence, divers and 

extraordinary 368 

Reflections. On the illimitable invention, and fertility of resources 
displayed in the creation of the inhabitants of the deep 383 

CRUSTACEANS. 
Remarkable creatures — Variety — Complicated in structure — The Lobster — De- 
scription — Fecundity — Moulting, a most extraordinary feat — Provision for 

a new suit 384 

Reflections. On instinct accomplishing what would puzzle and baffle 
intellect 387 

MOLLUSCANS. 
Immense variety — Beauty of shells — Characteristics of the occupants — Univalve 
class, cowries, carinaria vitrea, violet snails, nautilus, etc. — Bivalves, 
escallops, oyster, pearl oyster — Singing mussel — Giant clamp-shell — Cuttle- 
fish, octopus, loligo, etc., a remarkable family 388 

Reflections. On the mathematical principles displayed in the structure 
of shells 394 



CONTENTS. 15 

ANIMALCULES. page 

Much within the limits of natural vision — Microscope reveals a new world of 
living wonders — Strange and fantastic animals — Their numbers and minute- 
ness — Proteus, Rotifera and hydra — Infusoria — A drop of water the home 
Of 500,000,000 — Movements and performances — Rapid multiplication — Ex- 
traordinary modes of reproduction 396 

Reflections. Infinity above and infinity below — As difficult to stretch 
the imagination to the minute as to the vast — Contrast between telescopic 
and microscopic revelations 401 

SPLENDORS OF OCEAN LIFE. 

Vast chain of animated existences — Display of all-comprehending Intelligence — 
Proofs of the Creator's universal and unceasing agency — The production of 
happiness a leading design with God — Interesting scene beneath the waters 
of the North Sea — Animated charms of the Mediterranean — Brilliant dis- 
plays at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea — Submarine gardens of the Pacific 
—"The earth full of Thy riches" 403 

BIRDS. 

An interesting class — A question man could not answer — Design and adaptation 
conspicuous — Buoyancy — Provision for sinking and diving — Covering, 
every feather a wonder — Diversity of forms and habits — Striking adapta- 
tions of the Beak— Of the Foot — Of the internal Orgnas — Great muscular 
power of birds — The famous problem of Bernouli — Sight, hearing and 
smelling — Intelligence — Memory — Voice, structure of the wind-pipe, and 
larynx — Music of the grove — Power of a bird's voice — Pairing, a beneficent 
appointment — Nest-building, its ingenuity — Number of eggs laid — Incuba- 
tion, exhibiting marvels of instinct — Fecundity — Migration 413 

Reflections. On the Divine invention, guidance and goodness, as seen 
in Birds — Living Parables — " Behold the fowls of the air " — "As a hen 
gathereth her chickens " — "As an eagle stirreth up her nest " 436 

INSECTS. 

Productions of the fifth day — Number of species — Endowed with choicest powers 
— Multiplicity and complication of parts — External members — Manner of 
breathing — Touch, taste, smell and hearing — Sight, transcendent mechanism 
of their eyes — A substitute for speech — Passions — Strength — Mode of repro- 
duction — Fecundity — Clouds of locusts — Instinctive sagacity — Patience, „ 
stratagems, and architecture of Spiders — Ants, their industry, dwellings, 
government, military expeditions, and captured servants — Bees, a wonderful 
people, live under a sovereign, and dwell in a city — Plan of its avenues, 
streets and dwellings — A problem of high mathematics reduced to practice 
by insects — The comb a result of superior intelligence, whose intelli- 
gence? 444 

Reflections. Insects a powerful agency, and a pleasing ornament in 
the world — The Hand Divine seen in the least as well as the greatest — A 
brilliant and happy population within the bosom of a carnation — A beauti- 
ful illustration — A solemn warning 465 



16 CONTENTS. 

I. THE SIXTH DAY. 

History — The work continued — Spontaneous generation — Bar to confusion 475 

DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
Made for man — Sheep, their twofold value — Cattle, yielding help and sustenance 
— Horse, a combination of excellent qualities — Camel, formed for the desert 
— Elephant, its strength, sagacity and affection — Rein-deer, its owner's 
stock of wealth — Dog, his intelligence, fidelity and attachment — Each ani- 
mal fitted for its place and use ~ 477 

Reflections. Domestic animals evidences of a Father's care — To be 
treated with kindness — To be regarded with reflection — The lessons they 
teach 487 

WILD ANIMALS. 
Import of the word "Beast." Quadrumana — Orang-outang — Chimpanzee — 
Monkey — Wide anatomical and mental differences between these and man. 
Cheiropterans — Vampires and Bats — An extraordinary faculty. Predaceans 
— Lion, his form and character — Tiger, his strength and ferocity — Leopard 
— Bear, its importance in Kamtschatka, an affecting story — Marten, Sable, 
Ermine. Rodentes — Rabbit, its prolificness — Hare — Pika, its provident 
industry and grievous wrongs — Rat and Mouse — Beaver, its sagacity, 
dykes and habitations. Edentes — Ornithorhynchus, a paradox — Ant-eater. 
Ruminants — The ruminating process — Gazelle, Antelope and Chamois, their 
elegance and agility — Giraffe — Buffalo. Pachyderms — Rhinoceros — Hippo- 
potamus — Tapir. Marsupians — Kangaroo, its peculiar form — Opossum 492 

Reflections. Every beast constituted for its appointed place — Ferocity 
of beasts, how reconciled with Divine benevolence 508 

REPTILES. 
Generally shunned, yet instructive — Some amphibious, all cold-blooded. Sauri- 
ans — Crocodile, its size, strength and habits — Gavial — Alligator. Cheloni- 
a n 8 — Tortoise, its encasement, longevity, vitality and peculiar circulation. 
Ophidians — Boa Constrictor, its length and voraciousness — Liboya — Rattle- 
snake, viviparous — Agility of serpents — Emblem of cunning — Tenacity of 
life — Number of the poisonous. Bairachians — Frog, its interesting trans- 
formations— Toad— Pipa, its peculiar mode of hatching— Cruelty to these 
harmless animals. Vermes — Varieties — Earthworms, may be multiplied by 
division, benefit the soil. Entozoa, or parasites inhabiting the bodies of 

living animals; found rioting in every corner of the human frame 512 

Reflections. The Leviathan of Job and the Saurians of the Geologist 
—Instrumentality of the Serpent in the Fall of Man— Nothing made in 
vain — No creature beneath its Maker's care 524 

II. THE SIXTH DAY. 

History — The mansion prepared and furnished — The Inhabitant now to be in- 
troduced — Elohim in self-consultation — Three Persons — Image and likeness 
of God— Man's dominion— Divine benediction— Appointed food— "All 
very good" 531 



CONTENTS. 17 

MAN'S BODILY FRAME. page 

The crowning work — Erect posture, its advantages and nobleness — Symmetry 
of parts — Skin, its delicacy and influence— The Hand, its unrivalled me- 
chanism and importance — Man embodies all animal excellences — His gene- 
ral structure — The exquisite adjustments of his muscular and nervous 
systems — The vital machinery viewed in full operation — All repaired and 
renewed without a moment's interruption 536 

INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 
Foregoing structure made for the service of the indwelling Spirit — The brain 
the temple of the mind — The nerves its telegraphic wires — Acquires impres- 
sions of the external world through the senses — Elaborates from them 
innumerable conclusions — Memory treasures up ideas, Recollection calls 
them forth as needed — Importance of these faculties — Nothing lost from 
memory — Illustrations of this — Memory holds its stores for the service of 
the intellect — The use intellect has made of them — The mind capacitated 
for endless progress 547 

EMOTIONAL CONSTITUTION. 
An important department of the mental furniture — The various emotions and 
their offices stated — Without these, life would be a blank of passionless 
intellectuality , 556 

HIS MORAL NATURE. 
Conscience the crowning faculty — Its authority sacred and supreme — It may be 
resisted — Its existence an evidence for the righteousness of God — It elevates 
man above all earthly creatures — In the first created man, all the faculties 
and affections were pure, perfect and harmonious — And as a result, his was 
unalloyed and unintermitted happiness 558 

HIS HELP-MEET. 
" Male and female created He them " — Man and woman the complement of each 
other — To enhance their social happiness, they are endowed with the power 

of speech, and taught the use of language 561 

Reflections. On the illustrious character and happy state of man as he 
came from the hands of his Maker 562 

Closing Remarks 565 

2 



THE 



BIBLE AND SCIENCE, 




EADER, suppose that, by some concurrence of 
circumstances, you were unexpectedly landed 
upon a foreign shore, and among unknown peo- 
ple, where you presently discover, among other 
wonders, a stately temple, magnificent in its elevation 
and proportions, and venerable for its hoary antiquity. 
You approach the time-worn steps of its door-way, and 
are permitted to enter. With deep and solemn interest 
you advance, step by step, viewing and admiring its 
several parts — its arches and windows, its altars, 
statuary, and paintings. Delighted and astonished at 
the symmetry and beauty everywhere exhibited, you 
now turn to your attendant, and make many inquiries as 
to the uses and ends of what you have seen — the meaning 
of the emblems, the subjects of the paintings, and the 
grand purpose of the whole edifice. Finding all things 
most happily adapted for their several ends, and the 
whole fabric presenting a display of surpassing genius 
in contrivance, and skill in execution, your admiration 
is now raised higher than ever, and your reflections are 



19 



20 THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 

involuntarily and at once carried back to do homage to 
the master spirit, the noble architect, in whose creative 
mind the whole majestic pile had been conceived, and 
by whose plans and directions its erection had been 
begun, carried on, and completed. Well, this is not a 
mere imaginary representation, but all a sober statement 
of fact ; for into such a temple, but one infinitely more 
wondrous, you have actually been introduced. What 
structure of man's rearing or contrivance can compare 
with that of the world into which you have been born ? 
What length and breadth and solidity of foundations 
have we here! How magnificent its overarching 
heavens and inextinguishable luminaries ! What 
grandeur in its naked rocks and towering mountains, 
in its heaving oceans and flowing rivers ! How full of 
charms its varied sceneries ! What richness in its 
living and verdant carpeting! What ceaseless and 
happy activity among its myriad tenants in every 
habitable part! How inimitable the music softly 
echoing in its groves and dells ! How solemn and 
sublime the anthems rolling through its heavens ! 
Here, then, are displays of strength and skill and taste, 
worthy your most ardent study and admiration. And 
it is to an examination of this temple of Divine con- 
trivance and workmanship that you are now invited ; 
and I venture to promise you, that, at every step we 
shall take together, whether through its vaults and 
crypts, or over its varied and living mosaics, or among 
its solar and astral lights,, we shall find matchless 



THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 21 

wonders of wisdom and power and goodness everywhere 
displayed. If, in the puny productions of man, we can 
see sufficient to awaken our curiosity and admiration, 
here we shall discover enough to call forth our pro- 
foundest adoration. And I cannot but believe, dear 
reader, whatever thus far your creed or your practice 
may have been, that ere we shall close the survey 
now proposed, we shall often together " rise from nature 
to nature's God," and even these magnificent wonders 
fade from view hi our admiration of the Divine perfec- 
tions from which they have emanated, and by which 
they are all infinitely transcended. 



§he Sprang. 



Origination of Matter : Primordial condition of the Earth ,• its pre- Adamite 
revolutions. 




THE BEGINNING. 

Genesis 1 : 1. — In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 

HUS opens the Book of God with the announce- 
ment of a truth which no process of reasoning- 
could have reached, and with the declaration of 
a fact which no philosophy could ever have un- 
veiled. Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the thought, 
nothing surpass the appropriateness of the words, as 
an introduction to the sacred volume. Looking back 
across the wide waste of all the ages past, this sentence 
of divine sublimity, like a majestic ARCHWAY, stands 
at the closing bounds of eternity past — beyond it are 
the silence and darkness of ancient night ; and out of 
it issue the periods, and scenes, and events of time. 

This first verse of the Inspired Record stands as a 
distinct and independent sentence ; and by it the Holy 
Spirit affirms that the heavens and the earth were 
"created," or primarily originated by God, not from 
elements previously existing, but from nothing. Here 
is asserted the absolute origination of the materials 
composing the universe. This creative act was quite 
distinct from, and long anterior to, the acts included in 
" the six days," and which begin with the emergence 
of light from darkness, at the third verse. 

25 



26 THE BEGINNING. 

The earth and the heavens, then, had a " beginning." 
Such is the first great truth taught us in the Bible — a 
truth which the unaided wisdom of man failed to dis- 
cover or even conceive. The ancient schools of phil- 
osophy, without an exception, held that matter was 
eternal. To them it appeared an absurdity to suppose 
that anything could be created or produced from 
nothing. " Know first of all," said Epicurus, " that 
nothing can spring from nonentity." Plato declared 
matter to be " co-existent with God." And Aristotle 
asserted the eternity of the world both in matter and 
form. Nor has this doctrine of the ancients been with- 
out its advocates in modern times, some of whom have 
maintained, not only that the globe itself has been 
eternal, but also that there have existed upon it an 
eternal series of men, of beasts, of birds, etc. But the 
history before us affirms that the earth, and all things 
therein, were created by God, and had a beginning. 
And to a beginning, indeed, all things around us, above 
us, beneath us, obviously carry us back. 

That the earth, its vegetation and living inhabitants 
have not always been — have not existed from eternity 
— is proved by this general argument : Order, design, 
and adaptation of means to ends, universally prove the 
agency of intelligence ; the earth and its productions 
everywhere abound with instances of order, design and 
adaptation ; therefore, the earth and its productions 
must be the work of an ' intelligent Being, and, conse- 
quently, must have had a beginning. 



THE BEGINNING. 27 

Examination, comparison and analysis, in whatever 
department or province of creation made, on the prin- 
ciple of the above syllogism, carry us straightway back 
to a beginning. Neither the earth, nor anything on 
the earth, is found to be simple or uncompounded. 
Everything we see, feel or handle, is a composition — a 
mixture of different elements. The bodies of animals 
and the substance of plants, the soil and the rocks, and 
even the water, the air, and the light are compounds. 
Now, scientific investigation has ascertained that there 
are in nature fifty-four simple substances, or elementary 
principles, and that everything embraced in the sub- 
stance, or existing upon the surface of the globe, is a 
composition of a greater or less number of these. As 
all the words in the English language are composed 
out of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, so out of 
these fifty-four simple substances the whole volume of 
creation is composed. And as the letters are combined 
in a definite order to form each word, so these elemen- 
tary principles are combined in uniform and established 
proportions, to form the various materials which go to 
make up our world. The elements composing its 
atmosphere and its water, the combinations that con- 
stitute the crystals composing its rocks, and the angles 
and facets which the minutest of these exhibit, are so 
far from indicating the fortuitous result of accident, 
that they are disposed according to laws the most unde- 
viating, and in proportions mathematically exact. But 
uniform laws, undeviating order, and exact proportions, 



28 THE BEGINNING. 

must be the products of an intelligent Being. The at- 
mosphere, the water, and the rocks, therefore, must be 
the work of such a Being, and, therefore, must have had 
a beginning. The ancient Atheistic theory of a fortui- 
tous concourse of atoms is thus completely exploded. 

Nor do we lack evidence to prove that the above 
fifty-four elementary substances themselves had a begin- 
ning. The ultimate and indivisible atoms composing 
each of them are endowed with properties that have 
reference and adaptation to those of the others — proper- 
ties that qualify them to attract or repel, to unite or 
coalesce with those of the others, so as to produce the 
endlessly diversified combinations and organisms of 
nature. These properties in the molecules of each 
primary element are fixed and definite, both in their 
number and action. " I assert, without fear of contra- 
diction," says Prout in his famous Treatise on Chem- 
istry, "that the molecular constitution of matter is 
decidedly artificial." And Sir John Herschell asserts 
that " every molecule or atom of matter has all the 
characters of a manufactured article ;" consequently, no 
atom can have been eternal. Hence appears the falsity 
and baselessness of the Pantheistic theory, that would 
substitute an eternal nature for an eternal God — 
every particle of matter in the universe, in clear and 
emphatic voice, pronouncing its condemnation. 

But to insist no longer on these refinements of sci- 
ence, interesting and conclusive as they are, and to deal 
only with what the eyes of all can see, and their hands 



THE BEGINNING. 29 

handle, let us take our stand on the granite rock, the 
basis of the earth's crust — even this is a compound, 
being made up of quartz, felspar, and mica. Whatever 
theory we may adopt to account for its origin, granite 
must have preceded stratified rocks, for these, as is evi- 
dent and universally admitted, were originally formed 
out of its pulverized crystalline particles; and stratified 
rocks must have preceded the soil, which is composed 
out of them and rests upon them; and the soil must 
have preceded vegetation, for this grows out of it; and 
vegetation must have preceded animals, as these subsist 
upon it, no living thing being capable of extracting its 
food directly from the ground. Hence, all animals, all 
vegetation, all soils, and all stratified rocks must have 
had a beginning ; for each of these has derived its ex- 
istence from what was in being before it. It plainly 
appears, therefore, that the Infidel's eternal series of 
men, of animals, of plants, etc., must have been simply 
impossible. 

Geology also brings from the depths beneath other 
testimonies, strong as the rocks, that the whole system 
of visible things on earth had its beginning. " Every 
step in our descent through the solid crust of the globe," 
says Dr. John Harris, " is suggestive of a beginning; 
for everything speaks of derivation. Each rock points 
downward to its source, and we can trace the lineal 
extraction of each successive stratum." And Hugh 
Miller, speaking of the more ancient animal organiza- 
tions, says : " Each of the extinct groups, we find, had 



30 THE BEGINNING. 

a beginning and an end ; there is not, in the wide do- 
main of physical science, a more certain fact; and every 
species of the group which now exists had, like all their 
predecessors on the scene, their beginning also. The 
infinite series of the Atheists of former times can have 
no place in modern science : all organic existences, recent 
or extinct, vegetable or animal, have had their beginning. 
There was a time when they were not. The Geologist 
can indicate that time, if not by years, at least by 
periods, and show what its relations were to the periods 
that went before, and that came after." 

Astronomy, likewise, reads to us from the heavens a 
geometrical demonstration of this fundamental truth. 
The solar system is a magnificent clock-work of unfail- 
ing perfection. All its stupendous parts influence and 
are influenced by one another, yet all move on in abso- 
lute harmony. Every orb has its magnitude set off by 
a scale, its materials weighed in a balance, its distance 
measured by a line, and its velocity regulated by an in- 
fallible law. And in this celestial machinery our 
planet has its place, fitting therein as a wheel into a 
wheel in the works of a chronometer. A mere glance 
at this wonderful system instantly lodges a conviction 
within the mind, that it is the contrivance of infinite 
skill, and the work of infinite power, and, consequently, 
that there was a time when it had its birth. 

Thus the investigations of modern science, at what- 
ever point of the horizon commenced, converge and 
unite in the grand and fundamental truth, that " In 



THE BEGINNING. 31 

THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE 



EARTH." 



When — how far back in the past — the beginning 
was is not stated, neither does the record afford any 
clue by which this can be ascertained. For, as already 
stated, this verse stands as an independent sentence, 
and relates a creative act distinct from, and long prior 
to, the work of the six days. The sacred historian, in 
passing from the event announced in the first verse to 
the state of things described in the second, passes over 
a period of indefinite, and, perhaps, incalculable length. 
Of the condition of our planet during that period, what 
changes or revolutions it underwent, nothing is said ; 
but the second verse describes to us its condition imme- 
diately before the commencement of the Adamic crea- 
tion, the history of which begins with the third verse. 
And it will be proper to state here, that this is no new 
mode of interpretation, or a suggestion of modern 
geology with a view to harmonize its marvellous dis- 
coveries with holy writ. The sacred text was thus 
understood by the early fathers of the church — by 
Justin Martyr, Basil, Caesarius, Origen and others. Of 
the same view in later days were Patrick, Jennings and 
Calvin, all of whom wrote before geology was known as 
a science. They arrived at this view of the inspired 
narrative solely on Biblical grounds; and now the reve- 
lations of geology go to prove that the interpretation 
they gave is correct. 

There is, therefore, nothing to alarm the friend of the 



32 THE BEGINNING. 

Bible in the geological announcement that the earth 
may have existed through unmeasured periods before 
the creation of man. Geology militates not against the 
Scripture, but against the mistaken, though common, 
interpretation put upon it. The Scripture nowhere un- 
dertakes to inform us when this globe was brought into 
existence; it simply states the grand and important 
fact, that "in the beginning," whenever that was, 
"God created the heaven and the earth." Between 
that beginning and the creation of man, millions of 
years, or even millions of ages may have elapsed, during 
which all the physical changes and operations described 
by geology were going on. But these, like the rings of 
Saturn, or the satellites of Jupiter, the sacred historian, 
without saying a word, or dropping a hint, passes by, as 
not being embraced in the plan or connected with the 
object of the inspired word. 

As the Scripture account of creation does not inform 
us at what time, so neither does it in what form the 
earth was at first created. The origin of our globe is 
involved in great obscurity, which the powers of the 
most gifted have not been able to penetrate. Some, and 
among them are men equally distinguished for their 
piety and science, regard it as by no means an irra- 
tional thought to suppose that in the beginning the 
matter now composing our globe existed in a most at- 
tenuated state, and floated in space as a vast, extended 
cloud, and this gradually, under the influence of gravi- 
tation, of cohesive force, and of chemical aggregation, 



THE BEGINNING. 33 

moulded into the form of a sphere. But whether this 
supposition is to be accepted or not, certain it is, that 
we have many and strong evidences to believe that the 
earth, at a later period of its history, existed in a 
melted state, and has been slowly cooling ever since. 
Kevolving through space, where the temperature is not 
less than 230° below Zero, (Fahr.) the earth, accord- 
ing to the laws of radiation, must have been all along 
giving out and parting with some of its heat ; conse- 
quently the amount of its heat formerly must have been 
greater than it is at present ; and if we run backward 
through the ages, we shall ultimately reach a period 
when its heat must have been sufficient to melt all 
known substances. And that such a state of things 
actually existed seems to be plainly indicated by the 
igneous character of the primitive rocks, by the tropical 
climate that formerly prevailed in high latitudes, 
and by the present internal heat of the globe. The 
spheroidal figure of the earth, also, being exactly such 
as would be taken by a fluid mass revolving with the 
velocity of the earth, confirms this conclusion. 

When the earth was in its molten condition, all the 
water now contained in its oceans, lakes and rivers, 
must have existed in a vastly extended atmosphere of 
steam around it, owing to its intense heat. The cooling 
process, therefore, went on slowly, as this thick, vapor- 
ous canopy prevented rapid radiation. At length, 
however, a period arrived when a crust was formed 
over the melted sphere. This, like ice on agitated 



34 THE BEGINNING. 

waters, was, doubtless, heaved and ruptured at a 
thousand points, and that, perhaps, a thousand times 
repeated. But gradually the undulating surface ac- 
quired greater thickness and solidity, and became 
measurably stable ; and in process of time its tempera- 
ture was so far reduced as to admit of the existence of 
water in a fluid form. Long, however, the dark, " un- 
seen deep must have literally boiled as a pot, wildly 
tempested from below ; while from time to time more 
deeply seated convulsions upheaved suddenly to the 
surface, vast tracts of semi-molten rock, soon again to 
disappear, and from which waves of bulk enormous 
rolled outward to meet in wild conflict with the giant 
waves of other convulsions, or return to hiss and sputter 
against the intensely-heated and fast-foundering mass, 
whose violent upheaval had first elevated them and 
sent them abroad."* Thus cooling and consolidating, 
unmeasured periods passed away ; our planet, however, 
was still but an awful and tenantless waste ; darkness 
and silence reigned universal ; " the only sound which 
occasionally broke the intense stillness being the voice 
of subterranean thunder ; the only motion (not felt, for 
there was none to feel it) an earthquake ; the only phe- 
nomenon a molten sea, shot up from the fiery gulf be- 
low, to lay the foundation of coming islands, or to 
form the mighty framework of some future conti- 
nent." f 

At this primeval period of high temperature, seeth- 

* Test, of R, p. 197. f Pre- Adamite Earth, p. 71. 



THE BEGINNING. 35 

ing oceans and steamy atmosphere, there must have 
fallen, frequently, torrents of rain, of which aught that 
we now behold can suggest but a faint idea, and which, 
doubtless, formed rivers and cataracts far surpassing 
our Amazon and Niagara. The effect of these rains and 
flowing tides, and high temperature, was to disintegrate 
and grind and wear the granite surface, and to wash 
down the debris from higher to lower localities, or to 
carry them into the beds of existing seas and lakes, to 
be there deposited and hardened in successive layers ; 
and thus were formed the first stratified rocks. Mean- 
while, the force of internal fires ever and anon changed 
the relative level of the surface ; the bottom of the 
ocean was upheaved into high table lands, or mountain 
ridges, as the former plains and hills sank to be covered 
by the displaced ocean ; and in this manner new con- 
tinents were produced, new rivers formed, and new de- 
posits made. Thus the internal fires fused and frac- 
tured and lifted the, granitic rocks, and thus the never- 
wearied water washed and wore those rocks to dust and 
soil. 

At length, the temperature being sufficiently re- 
duced, and an adequate amount of soil formed from the 
washed and pulverized rocks, at the bidding of the 
Great First Cause, such vegetable and animal organiza- 
tions as could, in that condition of the globe, maintain 
an existence, began to appear — first in the sea, and 
then on the land. As these respectively ran their 
appointed periods and perished, and the earth con- 



36 THE BEGINNING. 

tinued to improve in soil and climate, at the same 
Omnipotent bidding, other and higher orders, both of 
vegetable and animal, were introduced from period to 
period. In like manner, these again died out, to be 
succeeded by others still. 

In this way the face of the earth was renewed and 
destroyed, peopled and repeopled, times without num- 
ber. For ages, and cycles of ages, it passed through 
alternate periods of upheaval and disruption, and of 
formation and repose — during the one, the loose mate- 
rials worn and ground by the elements from hill and 
dale, together with vegetable and animal remains, were 
continually carried and deposited at the bottoms of 
seas and lakes, where, layer after layer, they became 
hardened into other rocks, amounting to hundreds, and 
sometimes to thousands, of feet in thickness — during 
the other, these were again in vast extents heaved, or 
ruptured, or tilted into various positions. Thus all the 
present continents and islands of .the globe have been, 
for vast periods, and many of them several times, at the 
bottom of the ocean, while the regions now forming 
the floor of the deep, formed as many times the most 
elevated portions of the earth's surface. 

While these mighty periods and revolutions were 
going on, a vast series of different tribes of animals and 
plants successively occupied the land and the sea, and 
of which the variety, multiplicity, and strangeness ex- 
ceed by far everything which could have previously 
been imagined. But neither the plan nor the object 



THE BEGINNING. 37 

of the writer will permit him to notice these in detail, 
as brought to light by the indefatigable researches of 
geologists. We may, however, for the sake of illustra- 
tion, glance briefly at their most prominent character- 
istics during different epochs of the earth's pre-historic 
existence. 

In the dim obscurity of the earliest Cambrian rocks, 
no vegetation clothed the scoriated surface of the 
ground, and no life moved in the deep, dark waters of 
the sea. But towards the close of this system, whose 
age is measured by the slow deposit of 5,000 feet forma- 
tion, we find that the commandment has gone forth, 
and the sea is swarming with life ; myriads of corals 
are already at work building their interminable reefs 
and barriers; countless multitudes of unsightly trilo- 
bites are swimming with their backs downward, and 
looking eagerly for their prey; brilliantly-colored 
crinoids and stone-flowers gem the ocean floor; while 
over them and among them roam powerful races of the 
nautilus and cuttle-fish, terribly armed, and inspiring 
dread in the most formidable inhabitants of the deep. 

Descending now over the immeasurable period of the 
Silurian system, of a mile and a half thickness, during 
which hundreds of animal species ran through their ap- 
pointed cycle of generations and became extinct, we 
reach the Old Red Sandstone, whose formation records 
the Fish Dynasty ; sharks, rays, etc., being the most 
marked feature of this period. 

Advancing downward still with the flow of time 



Plants 



Cereals. 



Dicot. Tr, 



Dioctyledons. 



Monocotyledons. 



Gymnogens. 



Acrogens. 



GENEALOGY OF 



and 



. _ 




WsfSCftdl'k'-. 




^^E^LO^kEEfx^BEL 






Animals. 



MAN | 



Mammals. 



(Placent.) 



Mammals. 



Birds. 



Fish. 



Mollusca. 
Articulata. 
Badiata. 



THE BEGINNING. 39 

through unnumbered ages, we arrive at the epoch of 
the Coal Measures, in which we find, for the first 
time, large and important indications of land vegeta- 
tion. The dry portions of the earth's surface, during 
this period, abounded in rank and gorgeous vegetable 
productions, among which stood conspicuously the 
graceful araucaria, the tall and spreading lepidoden- 
dron, with its feathery fronds, the huge club-mosses, the 
elegant sigillaria, the strange tree-ferns, with gigantic 
pines and firs, " all begirt with creepers and parasitic 
plants, climbing to the topmost branches of the tallest 
among them, and enlivening, by the bright and vivid 
colors of their flowers, the dark and gloomy character of 
the great masses of vegetation."* These primeval forests, 
however, so far as known, do not appear to have ever 
echoed to the voice of birds ; nor does there remain an 
indication that a quadruped or reptile ever roamed 
through their tangled solitudes. The fossils of a few 
insects, indeed, remain to testify that animal life was 
not altogether absent. The sea, however, was now 
abundantly peopled. 

Eepeating again our flight, and passing by the ex- 
tended periods of the Magnesian Limestone, we next 
alight on the New Red Sandstone. Other races, we 
now see, have taken possession of earth, air, and water. 
Birds now track the sands and wade the shallows, of a 
bulk three times that of a modern ostrich, and dragon- 
flies and beetles hum through the air. 

* Ansted. 



40 THE BEGINNING. 

Coming to what has been named the Lias formation, 
we reach the Reptile Dynasty. These formidable crea- 
tures now become the lords and tyrants of creation — 
the combatants and consumers of each other. Croco- 
diles and lizards and gavials everywhere abound. Huge, 
hat-like reptiles, vaster than the fabled dragons of old, 
are flitting through the air ; ponderous hatrachians, or 
frogs, large as a rhinoceros, are dragging their un- 
wieldy bulk along the sand; fierce and enormous 
sharks roam and reign through the ocean ; the rapacious 
megalausaurus, taller and larger than the bulkiest 
elephant, here and there is crushing his resistless way 
through the tangled brakes ; and from many a tepid 
bay is seen the frightful ichthyosaurus, with eyes well- 
nigh half a yard in diameter, glaring upon its unsus- 
pecting victim, which, whatever its size or strength, 
it is sure to prostrate with a single stroke of its enor- 
mous tail, and engulf at a single mouthful in its horrid 
jaws. 

Quitting our stand-point once more, and sailing over 
the thousands of years, and of ages, occupied in deposit- 
ing the vast Oolitic and Chalk formations, we come 
down to the Tertiary epoch, and take one more glance 
at our globe in its pre-Adamite condition. Between 
this epoch and the last, terrible and oft-repeated dis- 
turbances have taken place in the relations of sea and 
land : hence every living species that formerly occupied 
the earth has disappeared. Fishes and reptiles still ex- 
ist, but they are far inferior to those of former periods. 



THE BEGINNING. 41 

But now appears a mighty race of quadrupeds. Terrible 
and fierce creatures they were. Hyenas, bears, tigers, 
of huge proportions, now roamed the earth. The 
elephant, the mammoth, and the mastodon also traversed 
the plains and forests, even in far northern latitudes. 
Besides these, there were others of much vaster size 
than any now extant. The Deinotherium was an 
elephant-like creature, but twelve feet high and twenty 
feet in length, and robust in proportion, with two enor- 
mous tusks curving downward from the under jaw. 
The Megatherium, as its name implies, was a brute of 
stupendous proportions; the monstrous pillars which 
supported the body were like forest trees, and were 
three times the thickness of the largest elephant's ; the 
width across the loins was about six feet. The print 
of the forefoot was about a yard long, and twelve inches 
wide ; that of the hind foot about half as large again. 
The feet were furnished with claws ten inches in length, 
and about twelve inches in circumference at the root. 
Its tail was five or six feet in circumference. Its mode 
of living was to tear up large trees by the roots, and 
strip them of leaves and radicles. In motion it was 
very slow ; but it had little need of speed, when, for de- 
fence against its enemies, it had a coat of mail an inch 
thick, and with one tread of its foot, or one lash of its 
tail, it could kill the largest puma or tiger. 

In the Post-Tertiary period, even that region 
of the globe which now embraces ihe British Islands, 
was inhabited by huge and most formidable races 



42 THE BEGINNING. 

of animals, of which Prof. Owen gives the following 
picture : 

" Gigantic elephants, of nearly twice the bulk of the 
largest individuals that now exist in Ceylon and Africa, 
roamed here in herds, if we may judge from the abun- 
dance of their remains. Two-horned Ehinoceroses 
forced their way through the ancient forests, or wal- 
lowed in the swamps. The lakes and rivers were 
tenanted by Hippopotamuses, as bulky and with as 
formidable tusks as those of Africa. Three kinds of wild 
oxen, two of which were of colossal strength, and one 
of these maned and villous, like the Bonassus, found 
subsistence in the plains." During this period vast and 
wonderful changes were wrought in the surface of the 
earth ; the great dynamical agencies of the globe were 
in intense and incessant activity over the broad expan- 
sions of sea and land, as if hastening to completion the 
great terrestrial structure. 

Geology has revealed to us not only the fact that our 
planet was occupied by a long succession of animal 
races, such as we have now glanced at, but also that 
these were introduced in an ascending order. " There 
is a manifest progress in the succession of beings on the 
surface of the earth," says Agassiz, " and this progress 
consists in an increasing similarity to the living fauna ; 
and among the vertebrate especially, in their increasing 
resemblance to man. Man was the end toward which 
all the animal creation tended, from the first appearance 
of the first Silurian fishes." Man, the last in time, but 



THE BEGINNING. 43 

the first in the contemplation of the Creator, was pre- 
ordained to be the final and most perfect product of this 
vast and magnificent plan of terrestrial creation. 

Geology further establishes the fact, that through- 
out these pre-Adamite periods, there was also a pro- 
gressive preparation of the globe itself — of its atmos- 
phere and climate, soil and productions. But when it 
had reached even the close of its geological history, it 
was not yet fully prepared for the reception of man ; 
for still it lacked many things essential to his comfort, 
and even to his existence. Down to the last of the 
Post-tertiary deposits there has been discovered no fossil, 
or certain trace of a fossil, of any of those plants which 
yield wine, or oil, or bread, or perfume — none of those 
which so charm us with the beauty of their colors and 
the richness of their fragrance — none of the cereals, 
wheat, barley, rye, millet, rice, maize, which constitute 
our staff of life. These were to be among the produc- 
tions of the last and human epoch of our planet. 

We have now given an outline of the history of our 
globe during its pre-Adamic existence, as human investi- 
gation has been able to decipher it. Striking and 
startling as the foregoing statements may appear, and 
differing from anything which the imagination of man 
in former ages conceived of the history of our world, 
still they are sober truths, and are established in our 
day, by evidences so complete and undeniable, as to 
leave no doubt whatever of their reality, on the minds 
of those, who, with the requisite qualifications, have 



44 THE BEGINNING. 

studied the subject. However, neither from the forma- 
tion of the rocks, nor from the fossil remains which 
they contain, can we form any definite or certain cal- 
culation as to the actual age of the planet upon which 
we live. But all facts and indications concur in 
assigning very great and gigantic periods of time, as 
having been occupied by the events which formed its 
strata, and brought them into their present condition. 
"There is nothing which at all goes beyond the magni- 
tude which observation and reasoning suggest for geo- 
logical periods, in supposing that the Tertiary (or latest) 
strata occupied, in their deposition and elevation, a 
period as much greater than the period of human 
history, as the solar system is larger than the earth : — 
that the Secondary strata were as much longer than 
these, in their formation, as the nearest fixed star is more 
distant than the sun : — that the still earlier masses, the 
Primary, did, in their production, extend through a 
period of time as vast, compared with the Secondary 
period, as the most distant nebula is remoter than the 
nearest stars. If the earth, as the habitation of man, 
is a speck in the midst of an infinity of space, the earth, 
as the habitation of man, is also a speck at the end of 
an infinity of time. If we are as nothing in the sur- 
rounding universe, we are as nothing in the elapsed 
organic antiquity, during which the earth has existed 
and been the abode of life."* 

* Plurality of Worlds, p. 122. 



THE BEGINNING. 45 

REFLECTIONS. 

In the beginning — amazing era ! The words carry 
back the mind, awed and bewildered, to that immeas- 
urably distant and dateless period, when all that we 
now behold, and all that now exist, were not — when 
no sun illumined the voids of space, no moon relieved 
the darkness of the night, nor a star twinkled in the 
heavens — when time had not concluded or commenced 
its first revolution — when no sound, no motion had ever 
broken the everlasting silence — when neither mind nor 
matter was to be found in all the dark profound — when 
God was the alone existence ! Then, even then, He 
was, and was all that He now is, in wisdom, and power, 
and love, and happiness ! Alone, He inhabited the 
solitudes of eternity ! What awe, what reverence should 
such thoughts awaken in every breast! He who is not 
inspired with sentiments of devotion by such reflections 
as these, must be dead to what chiefly ennobles all 
created intelligences. 

The scenes, awful and sublime, now surveyed, point 
us to the Supreme Being, as sitting upon " the throne, 
high and lifted up," moving all things ; but remaining 
himself unmoved and immovable, directing every revo- 
lution of the vast creation ; but himself affected by no 
progress of events, by no lapse of time ; not younger nor 
more vigorous ten thousand ages past, nor older or more* 
faint ten thousand ages to come ! Immutable in essence 
and attributes, He remains the same "yesterday, to- 



46 THE BEGINNING. 

day, and forever." When mountains rose or continents 
sank, or races were swept away and perished, He was 
as impassive and unmoved as when but a sparrow ex- 
pires, or a feather falls to the ground. He was still of 
one mind, and still His mighty plans, undisturbed, 
moved on. Independent of all created existences, He 
sits at the head of the universe, unchanged and inca- 
pable of change. 

In the geological survey now taken, we discover both 
a proof and an illustration of the declaration, " known 
unto God are all His works from the beginning." In 
the Divine mind existed the universe, in all its magni- 
tude and minutiae, eternal ages before the utterance of 
the first fiat of creation. In His book, all its parts, and 
periods, and motions were written, when as yet there 
was none of them. And His plan was perfect ; it neither 
needed nor received the shadow of a change in the 
course of its execution. No mistake was made, no de- 
lay occurred. As a train arriving successively at the 
stations along a line of road, at the precise minute 
marked for each place in the time table, so the earth, 
in its formation process, reached its several stages at 
the epoch, and period of the epoch, marked in the Di- 
vine plan ; so that the successive tribes of animals and 
plants, as they were brought forth, found the earth, 
both as to soil and climate, ready to receive and support 
them. The Contriver and Builder of the world foresaw 
all the revolutions which the course of ages would pro- 
duce, and the mighty work ever advanced infallibly 



THE BEGINNING. 47 

and without interruption. " Look on it when He would, 
He found it arrived at that stage where a thousand ages 
before He foresaw it would be. And look forward to 
what distant age He might, He beheld it in anticipation, 
already there arrived." No plan, no purpose of God, 
can fail of its accomplishment. 

In these scenes of ancient creation, we behold a 
striking display of the all-comprehending wisdom and 
universal agency of God. Here we witness " all things 
working together," through the course of ages, to further 
and accomplish His purpose. From the beginning, the 
earth was designed to be a habitation for man ; and to 
fit and furnish it for him, all the revolutions our planet 
experienced, all the transformations through which it 
passed, all the forces and influences to which it was 
subjected, unitedly and unfailingly conspired, through 
all the long epochs of its preparation. Every volcano 
that burned or belched in the morning of time — every 
hurricane that swept over the primeval seas — every 
earthquake that, in after periods, heaved its solid crust 
— every electric shock that rent the clouds, or vibrated 
through the rocky strata — were made under the guiding 
hand of the Divine Builder to work, and to work to- 
gether, toward perfecting this terrestrial abode. Fires 
fused, and forests flourished, to enrich with precious 
stores its everlasting hills. The gigantic races that 
browsed over ancient continents, and the tiny corals 
that toiled at the bottom of ancient oceans, were alike 
called forth to be laborers on the noble structure. 



48 THE BEGINNING. 

"Each trilobite,. each saurian, and every one of the 
mammalia, which exist now in the fossil state, were 
small laboratories in which the great work of eternal 
change was carried forward ; and under the compulsion 
of the strong laws of creation, they were made ministers 
to the great end of forming a world, which might be 
fitting for the presence of a creature endued with a 
spark taken from the celestial flame of intellectual 
life."* 

* Poetry of Science, p. 264. 



Mfot <$tao& |moi 



The earth is submerged and tenantless, and enveloped in thick darkness. 




THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

Genesis 1 : 2. — And the earth was without form, and void ; and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep : and the Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters. 

HE inspired historian, having introduced his 
subject with the sublime announcement, that " In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth," in this verse describes the state in 
which our globe existed immediately prior to the 
commencement of the Adamic creation. Between 
these verses, therefore, as has been set forth in the pre- 
ceding pages, there is a chasm of unnumbered ages in 
the sacred narrative. Eespecting the events and doings 
of this immense interval, the Scripture is entirely silent, 
as they did not relate to the moral history of our race, 
or come within the design of Revelation. This missing 
chapter in the history of our planet we have been left 
to supply for ourselves, from the physical monuments 
of the Divine power and wisdom, found in the rocky 
crust of the, earth. 

The condition of the globe, then, immediately before 
the creation of man, was that of a watery waste, deso- 
late and wrapped in darkness. Some geologists, how- 
ever, of late, have questioned this fact ; these hold that 

51 



52 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

the earth could not have been in such a state at that 
period — first, because they have not been able to dis- 
cover in its later or surface deposits any certain evi- 
dence of such a chaos ; and, secondly, because they can 
detect no such a break in the chain of fossil vegetable 
and animal species as will warrant or admit this suppo- 
sition. These objections are urged, and have force 
only on the mistaken hypothesis that this verse asserts 
a state of things in which " the sea, the earth, and the 
heaven, were a rude and indigested mass, the disagree- 
ing seeds of jarring elements confusedly jumbled to- 
gether in the same heap,"* in which no trace of animal 
life, or of vegetable organism, was anywhere to be found. 
But the sacred text, when fairly interpreted, conveys 
no such idea as this. Let us examine it. 

The original words tolm vavohu, rendered in the 
authorized English version, " without form and void," 
in the Septuagint or Greek version are translated 
"invisible and incomposed;" and in the Chaldee, 
u desert and empty." Bush, in his Notes, holds that 
their true import is "dreariness and desolation." It 
will be noticed that all these translations happily coin- 
cide, and are essentially identical. All that the 
passage, then, imports is, that our globe at this period 
existed as a watery and featureless desolation, enveloped 
in darkness — a condition similar to what it had repeat- 
edly passed through before, in the course of its eventful 
history. 

* Ovid's Meta. 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 53 

It will be observed that the sacred historian says 
nothing about the duration of this submerged and 
desolate condition; neither do his words offer the 
slightest intimation from which it can be inferred. 
That it was an immense period, is wholly a gratuitous 
assumption — it might or might not have been such. 
While it may suit the views and help the arguments 
of those who deny a chaotic state of the globe at this 
time, to speak of it as being thousands of ages, the 
language here employed permits us with equal right 
and consistency to suppose that it might riot have 
exceeded a thousand days. " The periods of disturb- 
ance on the globe," says Hitchcock, " appear to have 
been short, compared with the periods of repose that in- 
tervened." The last cataclysm (the Deluge) through 
which our world passed, we know, was brought about, 
and wholly passed away, within the brief period of a 
single year. 

Nor, again, does this verse or any of those that fol- 
low, require us to believe that all life in the waters, at 
this time, must have been extinct. Multitudes of the 
inhabitants of the sea passed in safety, and long sur- 
vived even the earlier and more tremendous revolutions 
of the earth ; and at no period, after the first dawn of 
animated existence, were the oceans left wholly tenant- 
less. For anything that is here said or implied, 
various tribes of fishes might have continued to live 
and propagate their kind throughout this chaotic 
period, though utter darkness everywhere prevailed ; 



54 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

for, at the present time, as under the ice of the Polar 
Seas, and elsewhere, fishes live in darkness. In the 
great Cave of Kentucky we find that fishes have lived 
and thrived and multiplied for ages, where not a ray 
of light ever reaches their gloomy abodes. To those 
species which survived the tohu vavohu period, many 
other and nobler species were added, indeed, by the 
fiat, which, with vivifying omnipotence, passed through 
all the deep places of the sea on the morning of the 
fifth day. 

Nor, once more, is it said or implied in this verse, 
that even the whole of the solid ground was under 
water ; the language used does not necessarily bind us 
to this conclusion. Portions of land, such as lofty 
mountain ranges, and even parts of elevated plateaus, 
like those of central Asia, might have been, doubtless 
were, above the general level of the waters ; so that it 
might properly and truly be said, " the earth was 
standing out of the water, and in the water."* Nor 
is there anything in the Record before us, or in the 
condition of things described, to forbid the supposition 
that vegetation, together with certain animals, (such as 
those claimed by geologists to have existed long ages 
before man,) might have survived the catastrophe on 
these unsubmerged portions of the earth's surface. The 
more dank and dense vapors arising from the face of 
the agitated deep, and shutting out the light of the sun, 
would naturally float in dark and heavy folds in the 

* 2 Peter 3 : 5. 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 55 

lowest regions of the atmosphere, but growing thinner 
and lighter with increasing altitude ; so that while 
darkness, unmitigated darkness, was upon the face of 
the waters below, the elevated mountain tops might 
have been relieved by a degree of light and warmth 
from the sun, which rendered them, in many latitudes, 
a far more favorable abode to life than are the present 
arctic regions with their intense cold and months of 
winter darkness, which yet are the chosen homes of 
many species of living creatures. Among all its 
revolutions, geology records no catastrophe that swept 
away all living creatures at a stroke, leaving the entire 
earth tenantless ; while multitudes were often destroyed, 
more or less always survived. And why may we not 
suppose the same of this last catastrophe ? 

Nor, finally, does the Mosaic Record state, neither is 
there anything in the discoveries of geology to decide. 
the precise way in which the globe was reduced to this 
chaotic condition — whether by the subsidence of the 
dry land, or mainly by a general elevation of the beds 
of the ancient oceans. It might have been by the one 
or the other ; " many of the apparent elevations of the 
land," says Dana, " may have been due to the deepening 
of the oceanic basin; and some of the apparent subsi- 
dences of the land may have been caused by an eleva- 
tion of the oceanic basin." If, therefore, this chaos 
was brought about mainly by the elevation of the ocean 
floor, thus sending abroad its waters over the land ; 
and if the gathering together of those waters, in order 



56 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

to make the land again appear on the third day, was 
effected mainly by the sinking of the ocean floor — then 
the surfaces of the old continents have remained undis- 
turbed, and their relative levels and respective plains, 
elevations, and declivities continue as they were of old; 
so that the sublime pinnacles of the Alps and the 
Ararat stand now as they stood in the midst of the 
former creation, and the Niagara and the Colorado flow 
to-day along the same rocky channels that they began 
to scoop out numerous ages before the earth had been 
reduced into the chaotic state here described. The 
foregoing suppositions are in perfect harmony with the 
teachings of geology ;* and the generality of the Mosaic 
statements, when fairly considered, will be found entirely 
compatible with them all. 

Let us now glance at the actual physical changes that 
were required to reduce the globe into the submerged 
state here described. Humboldt has estimated the mean 
elevation of Europe at 671 feet; of Asia, 1151 feet; of 
North America, 748 feet; of South America, 1132 feet; 
and has set the mean elevation of all the continental 
lands at 1008 feet. If the high mountain ranges were 
left out of the calculation, this mean, as is obvious, 
would be greatly reduced. The whole north of Europe 
and Asia is merely a boundless plain ; and from the 
shores of Holland, through Germany, Eussia, the Steppes 
of the Caspian and Siberia, the traveller may cross the 
ancient world from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, a 

* See Hitchcock's Elem. of Geol., p. 157. 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 57 

distance of more than 6000 miles, without encountering 
an eminence of more than a few hundred feet high. The 
extended plains of the Ganges and of the Euphrates 
have but a small elevation above the ocean level. In 
Africa also, the plains of Sahara extend 2500 miles in 
length, by 1000 miles in breadth. The mean elevation 
of Australia does not exceed 500 feet. In the New 
World, plains form two-thirds of the entire surface ; 
almost the whole East of it runs into immense plains, 
covering it, one might say, from pole to pole. From 
the Frozen Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, over an extent 
of nearly 2400 miles, we cross only insignificant heights. 
From the llanos of the Orinoco to the banks of the 
La Plata, we traverse more than 3000 miles of low 
plains, slightly interrupted by the somewhat more ele- 
vated regions of western Brazil; they are prolonged 
even to the pampas of Patagonia, 600 miles further 
south.* It has been estimated that if all the land above 
the present water-level were transferred into the ocean 
basins, it would occupy only one-fortieth 'part of their 
capacity. From the foregoing facts, it is obvious that 
an elevation of a few hundred feet only of the present 
bed of the ocean, attended, as it would be, by a corres- 
ponding depression of the land, would reduce all the 
existing continents of the globe into a few irregular 
and scattered islands — would, in fact, reduce the earth 
into precisely the condition described in the verse now 
under consideration. But a less elevation of the bottom 

* See Guyot's Earth and Man. 



58 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

of the seas than even this, by considerable, would have 
sufficed to submerge the earth at the commencement of 
the human era : for the oceans, according to the testi- 
mony of geology, have been constantly growing deeper, 
and the continents higher, ever since. 

Having premised the foregoing facts, we are now 
prepared to consider the objections urged against a 
chaotic condition of the globe, at the period in question. 

Objection 1. It is urged that the earth's surface 
affords no indication of a pre- Adamite chaos, such as we 
speak of. To this we may reply, that conclusions 
reached through mere negative evidences are generally 
of a doubtful character. The heavens to-night may 
exhibit no traces of the descent of a meteoric shower, 
but that does not prove that such a thing did not hap- 
pen on a former night. The same may be true of the 
case before us. That watery chaos may have left its 
marks, doubtless has, at a thousand points; but men 
looking for something greater, or something different, 
may not yet have learned to distinguish them. The 
inspired account before us does not require us to suppose 
that this chaos, like some of the tremendous cataclysms 
of the earlier epochs, was brought about by sudden or 
violent paroxysms, or that it was of numerous ages' 
continuance, such as would of necessity leave lasting 
and ineffaceable marks or relics behind it ; the internal 
forces of the earth had all along been quieting down, 
and the condition of the globe here described might 
have been the result of a slow subsidence of the land, 




TEMPLE OF JUPITER AND SERAPIS. 



60 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

and an equally slow elevation, at the same time, of the 
beds of the ancient oceans; so that its surface generally 
became covered with water, without a stratum being 
overturned, or tilted out of its place. Geology teaches 
us, that the process of both elevation and depression 
often goes on gradually and imperceptibly. " There 
have been instances," says Prof. Hitchcock, " of quiet, 
gradual elevation without catastrophe; and it may not 
be possible, in all cases, to find evidence of any great 
geological disturbance at the close of all the life periods." 
Such movements in the earth's crust are constantly 
taking place at the present period. 

The temple of Jupiter Serapis, at Pozzuoli, was origi- 
nally built at the level of the sea. Subsequently, the 
ground gradually subsided to the depth of 21 feet, and 
its interior became a lake. At length the land gradu- 
ally rose again, until the pavement once more stood on 
a level with the sea. Three of its columns are now 
standing, and bear clear evidence of their submergence ; 
the lower 12 feet of these columns, being immersed 
in mud, remain smooth, but for 9 feet above they are 
penetrated by the little boring shells of the Mediter- 
ranean, and remains of these shells were found in their 
holes. 

On several parts of the coasts of Britain and Ireland, 
the voyager can look down through the clear sea, in 
dephts to which the tide never falls, on the remains 
of submerged forests. The whole mass of Scandinavia, 
an extent of 1000 miles from north to south, is being 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. CI 

elevated at the rate of from two to four feet per century. 
On the other hand, the west coast of Greenland, for a 
distance of 600 miles, has been sinking for ages ; old 
buildings and islands have been submerged; and the 
Moravian settlers have had to put down new poles for 
their boats, and the old ones stand as silent witnesses 
of the change.* It has also been shown, beyond all 
question, that the eastern part of South America has 
been raised, in the most quiet manner, without disturbing 
the horizontality of the strata, from 100 feet to 1400 
feet, over an extent of 1200 miles, since the Drift 
period. With such facts, then, before us, where is the 
difficulty in admitting and believing that the earth, at 
the period in question, was reduced to a watery chaos, 
and then restored, though no ruptured strata, or buried 
fossils, or ruined mountains, remain to prove it? We 
find a distinguished geologist, while denying a pre- 
Adamite chaos, in laboring to establish his favorite 
theory of the Noachian deluge, with great facility 
depressing the surface of the earth by millions of square 
miles, and bringing in the waters of three distant seas 
to overwhelm it to the depth of 16,000 feet; and then 
with equal facility drawing off the mighty ocean, and 
elevating the whole extent to its former level — and all 
this, as he represents, without leaving behind any recog- 
nizable evidences of the occurrence.-)- Countenanced 
by so high an authority, then, as Hugh Miller, why 
may we not suppose the same in regard to this primeval 

*See Lyell's Prin. of Geol. fTest. of Eocks, page 358. 



$2 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

chaos? If the absence of evidence does not disprove 
the one, why should it the other ? 

Objection 2. It is argued against a chaotic condition 
of the globe, at the period immediately preceding man, 
that certain vegetable productions, such as the Scotch- 
fir, the common birch, the Norwegian spruce, etc., 
nourished in times long anterior to the human race, 
and that these flourish still, which could not have been 
the case had such a chaos intervened. Admitting this 
to be a fact, it does not involve our position in the 
slightest difficulty. The existence of such trees, and 
of many other vegetable productions, might have been 
safely conveyed across the chaotic period in their seeds, 
buried deep in soil or mud ; many of these seeds, after 
the waters had been withdrawn, would, under suitable 
conditions, in any region of the globe, sprout and grow 
as successfully, as they would have done on the day 
they fell upon the ground. The longevity of seeds may 
be reckoned among the greatest marvels of creation. 
Grains of wheat, after having lain buried with mummies 
for twenty-five centuries, when moistened in the soil 
and warmed by the sun, have germinated and repro- 
duced as vigorously as if they had been the product of 
last harvest. Seeds that grew long ages before Adam 
woke to consciousness, may at this day be found in the 
ground, possessing their original vitality undiminished 
and uninjured. A few years since, earth was brought 
up in England from a depth of 360 feet, and carefully 
covered with glass to prevent the possibility of any 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 63 

blown or floating seeds being deposited upon it ; yet, in 
a short time, plants vegetated from it. Indeed alluvial 
and diluvial soils appear to be full of seeds to unknown 
depths, the produce of ages long gone by, and which 
need but to be brought to the surface, to sprout and 
thrive, as if they had but yesterday dropped from the 
parent plant. In this way, therefore, many of the 
plants and trees of the old earth might have survived 
the chaos; and some of them might have sprung up 
spontaneously even in Eden, among the more perfect, 
more valuable and beautiful species, that were then for 
the first time called into existence. And to this dis- 
tinction in the origin of the present vegetation of the 
earth, perhaps, refer the words — " Every plant of the 
field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the 
field before it grew."* 

Objection 3. It is contended against the doctrine of 
a chaotic state of the globe at the commencement of 
the human period, that between several species of 
animals of the present time, and those of the former 
creation, there occurs no break; that one continuous 
chain of organic existences connects the modern world 
with the pre- Adamite world. But may we not ask, will 
this chain hold good throughout? Has it been proved 
that all the links have actual connection? or, are there 
not points at which they may lie simply in close prox- 
imity? Is there no room for honest difference of opinion 
here? We think there is. Hugh Miller tells us, "there 

* Gen. 2 : 5. 



64 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

may be portions of the prophetic pre- Adamite past, of 
as doubtful interpretation at the present time, from the 
imperfect development of physical science, as is any 
portion of the prophetic future, from the imperfect 
development of historic events." It is a possible thing, 
then, that the links may be very similar, and may be 
found very near together, and yet not exactly form a 
chain. The destruction of the plants and animals 
before the chaos did not make it necessary or certain 
that those which were to occupy the earth after it, 
should be all different from them. The species existing 
before the deluge were preserved and carried forward 
to repeople the earth after it ; so certain species of the 
old earth, as already indicated,* might have been pre- 
served on the mountain tops, to prolong their existence 
through the era of man; or, the Creator, in peopling 
the new earth, might have reproduced such of the 
species of the bygone world as were most suitable to 
be contemporaneous with man. In either of these 
ways, perhaps in both, the fossil remains of animals 
living before the chaos, and the fossil remains of 
the same animals living after it, may be found 
in many localities lying together, and that so 
closely and so mingled, that at this distance of time, 
they may appear like " a continuous chain," while in 
reality between their life-times may have intervened 
the billows and the darkness of the chaos here de- 
scribed. 

* See p. 53. 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 65 

It remains jet to be proved, however, that any of the 
living and fossil species are identical. Several that 
were once considered the same, have, of late, upon 
closer and more careful examination, been pronounced 
different. " The number of species," says one of the 
greatest of living naturalists, " still considered identical 
in several successive periods, is growing smaller and 
smaller, in proportion as they are more closely com- 
pared." Future and further investigation, therefore, 
may do away with the few that remain ; indeed, even 
now, " eminent naturalists, among whom Agassiz stands 
at the head, are of the opinion, that the fossil and living 
species are not in any case, perhaps, identical ; but only 
closely related."* The horse, the ox, the deer, the 
camel, etc., of the former creation, were of a larger size 
than the living species.f So, also, were the beasts of 
prey .J The " continuous chain" of animal existence, 
therefore, has not yet been demonstrated; consequently, 
the objection based upon it against the chaotic condi- 
tion of the globe, at the period in question, is without 
force. But even were the identity of species fully 
established, the fact might be accounted for in perfect 
harmony with the existence of a chaos, on either of the 
suppositions stated in the preceding paragraph. 

Having examined what has been urged by way of 
objection, let us now proceed to inquire what evidence 
of a positive character may be found respecting a 
chaos on the eve of man's creation. 

* Hitchcock's Eleni. of Geol., p. 328. f lb., 349. % Dana's GeoL, p. 573. 
5 



66 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

1. That the earth underwent some great physical 
revolution immediately before the commencement of 
the human age, seems to be strongly indicated by the 
great change that took place in its climate about that 
time. Formerly, the general temperature was much 
higher - the character of both animal and vegetable fos- 
sils goes to show that a tropical climate prevailed even 
in high latitudes. " The Terrace epoch/' says Dana, "be- 
longs, at least in part, to man, and the last of this epoch 
— in which the continents were raised nearly to their 
present level — again cooled down the earth, and ended 
in introducing approximately the existing climates of 
the globe ; and the extermination of the cave beast of 
Europe, and other Post-Tertiary species, may have 
been coincident with this great climatal change."* 

2. That the earth existed in a chaotic condition im- 
mediately previous to the epoch of man, is further indi- 
cated by the general extinction of the animal species 
belonging to the old world, which took place at that 
period. " Very few fishes, reptiles, or birds of the 
present era," says the author just quoted, u are yet 
known, from any discovery of fossils, to have existed in 
the Post-Tertiary."-)* And Hitchcock bears similar tes- 
timony : " The fossil birds and mammals of the alluvial 
period belong almost exclusively to extinct species, and 
often to extinct genera."J In the Podrome de Palrnon- 
tologie it is stated, that " between the termination of 
the Tertiary period and the commencement of the hu- 

* Manl. of Geol., pp. 554 and 567. f lb., 576. % El. of Geol., p. 342. 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 67 

man period, there is a complete break" in animal exist- 
ence. Now, how are we to account for this general 
extinction of animated creatures at this period ? Let a 
geologist help us to an answer : " The extermination of 
species," writes Dana, " was, in general, due to catas- 
trophes." Now, as the extermination at this period 
was general, the catastrophe occasioning it must have 
been equally general ; and this is precisely the state of 
things indicated in this second verse. 

3. That the waters of our globe were gathered to- 
gether, and their bounds much contracted, about the 
beginning of the human period, is attested by many 
facts of recent discovery. Since the Post-Tertiary 
epoch, a vast area of the floor of the Pacific, measuring 
6,000 miles in length, and from 1,000 to 2,000 miles in 
breadth, has been depressed thousands of feet ; 200 
islands have disappeared beneath the waters, and the 
whole amount of subsidence is estimated by Dana to 
be no less than 6,000 feet.* The same writer men- 
tions facts which are strong testimony that just about 
the opening of the age of man there was a great subsi j 
dence also, of the bed of the Mediterranean. f The sea- 
beds around the British Islands, likewise, were depressed 
about the same period. Similar subsidences in other 
parts are also mentioned by geological authorities. 
Now, as the Sacred Kecord, according to its plain and 
natural sense, declares that the waters which covered 
the earth were, at this time, " gathered together," we 

* Manl. of Geol., p. 587. f lb., 734. 



68 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

may, with reason, believe that in these contemporaneous 
subsidences we have the result of the Almighty im- 
pulse that attended the fiat, "Let the dry land ap- 
pear." 

4. One of the general laws established by geology is, 
" That at the close of long epochs, there were nearly 
universal extinctions, followed by abundant creations."* 
In perfect harmony with this law, there was at the be- 
ginning of the human period a magnificent creation, 
both of plants and animals. Than this there is not a 
fact in the whole compass of geological investigations 
better attested. The present species of the horse, rab- 
bit, bison, peccary, beaver, musk-rat, elk, deer, raccoon, 
opossum, hog, sheep, dog and ox, are said by leading 
geological authorities to date from the Terrace epoch, 
toward the close of which man appeared.*)- " The most 
important feature of the alluvial formation," writes 
Hitchcock, " was the introduction of man near the close 
of the period, and of numerous species both of animals 
and plants, much better adapted to his wants than the 
analogous races of earlier times."J Again : " This last 
creation is distinguished from all that preceded it on 
the globe, as it presents by far the fullest and most per- 
fect fauna and flora." || " The creation of man," con- 
tinues the same author, " along with a vast number of 
contemporaneous species of a higher grade than the 
earth had before seen, and forming the culmination of 

* Dana's Manl. of Geol., p. 398. f See Holmes and Leidy. 

% Elem. of Geol., p. 324. || lb., 342, 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. (59 

organic existence on the globe, is the most marked fea- 
ture of geological history, and marks off the alluvial 
period from all others."* 

Let us now review and bring together the foregoing 
facts, and place them as in one focus, in order to per- 
ceive their full force. We have seen that the second 
verse of the Mosaic account of creation teaches and di- 
rects us to look for nothing more than a cataclysm, or 
general deluge, of longer or shorter duration — that 
geology proves that such a cataclysm might have taken 
place without leaving behind it, in the earth's surface, 
any demonstrative evidence of the event, and that the 
facts urged in disproof of a chaos may be explained in 
perfect harmony with that event. We have also seen 
that it is the teaching of geology, that early in the Ter- 
race or alluvial period, there was a general extermina- 
tion of the animal races, and a great and sudden change 
in the climate, such as a cataclysm would naturally 
effect — that just about the close of that period there 
occurred numerous subsidences of the ocean-beds, while 
the continents were raised to about their present eleva- 
tion — that just about that time was introduced the 
present magnificent vegetation, vegetation such as never 
adorned the globe before — that just about that time 
were created the noblest and most perfect races of ani- 
mals, which now occupy the face of the earth — and, 
finally, that just about that time man himself was cre- 
ated, and walked forth in the image of his Maker. 

* lb., 355. 



70 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

Now, centeniplating these striking events in and by 
themselves, and as all taking place just about the same 
time, and that time coinciding with the commencement 
of the human period — is not the conviction irresistibly 
forced upon us, that all this not only stands in perfect 
harmony with the Inspired Record, but is powerfully 
corroborative of all its statements. We actually have, 
in the foregoing facts — facts all admitted and taught by 
geologists — the substance of all that the literal inter- 
pretation of this chapter requires. The evidence on the 
face of the earth, so far as it has been investigated, and 
the testimony of the Word of God, are here at one. 
Here is entire harmony in facts, and complete coinci- 
dence both in time and order. Stronger corroborations, 
considering the source from whence they have been de- 
rived, together with the length of time which has since 
elapsed, could hardly have been looked for. Hence we 
firmly believe, certain geological authorities to the con- 
trary notwithstanding, that at the beginning of the 
epoch of man, the earth was luitliout form and void, and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep; and that this 
chaotic condition of the globe was immediately followed 
by the creation of the present order of things, just as re- 
lated in this chapter. 

The foregoing view of the Pre-Adamite chaos is, 
moreover, in perfect harmony with the course of creation, 
as revealed by geology, during the preceding epochs. 
This submerged condition of the globe was but one of 
a series of similar catastrophes ; and the creation that 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 71 

followed it was but one of a series of similar, but ever 
ascending, creations. And as the plant and animal 
creations of former periods, in every instance,* fol- 
lowed some great geological disturbance, which had 
destroyed those occupying the earth before; so the 
Adamic creation followed the chaos which had swept 
away the animals of the ancient earth. And, as through 
the course of prior revolutions, the organic existences 
of adjacent periods and formations were ever united 
by a less or greater number of connecting links ; so, 
in the ways before indicated, representatives of the 
fishes, and plants, and beasts of the Old world survived 
this chaos to connect them with the new and higher 
order of creatures in the era of man. Thus, as had 
been the case all along through the prior epochs, the 
old and the new creation joined and dovetailed into one 
another, in the sea and on the land, among plants and 
among animals. 

The design of the account given of the condition 
of the globe, in the second verse, seems to be to prepare 
the reader for the description which follows of the six 
days' work, which begins at the third verse ; for it both 
indicates the necessity for such a recreating work, by 
affirming the chaotic state of the earth ; and describes 
the Spirit of God as already hovering over the chaos 
preparatory to it. 

And the earth was without form and void. Bush 
would translate this sentence, "And the earth had 

*D'Orbigny. 



72 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

become without form and void." The learned and judi- 
cious Dathe renders it, " Afterwards the earth became 
waste and desolate." Whichever of these translations 
we adopt, the idea is plainly conveyed, that at the 
period immediately preceding the Adamic creation, the 
earth existed as the submerged ruin of an anterior 
world, a condition of things, as already observed, 
similar to what had before repeatedly taken place. 

And darkness ivas upon the face of the deep. This 
darkness was the result of the chaotic state into which 
the earth had been thrown. The commingling of land 
and water — the agitation of tides and currents, and of 
violent and frequent tempests attendant upon the 
change of climate — the smoke and steam of submerged 
volcanos — the warm ground of the old continents 
beneath the waters, together with subterranean fires, 
and j>erhaps molten lava spreading in many regions in 
fields along the bottom of the seas — all of which, 
together with the evaporation of the sun from so vast 
and agitated a body of waters, in process of time, 
engendered such prodigious masses of dense vapors, 
forming layer upon layer of " closely packed and dark- 
ling clouds," which excluded every ray of light, and 
thus threw a pall of darkest night over the whole sur- 
face of the turbid and tumultuous deep below. 

How long our world remained in this chaotic state, 
we have no means of determining. The eventful hour 
now, however, was at hand, that was to introduce a 
series of re-creative operations which were to advance 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 73 

it to its final state of perfection, and to fit and furnish 
it as a suitable and happy abode for intelligence, devo- 
tion and love. 

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters. The word translated " moved " here, in He- 
brew lexicons, is rendered " fluttered like a dove," and 
the verse might have been translated, And the Spirit 
of God continued fluttering, after the manner of a dove, 
upon the face of the waters. What effect or operation 
is here described is not precisely known. When the 
Spirit, like a dove, descended at the waters of Jordan, 
it was in attestation of the Father's complacency in his 
well-beloved Son ; so, here, perhaps, the chief idea in- 
tended to be conveyed is, that the Almighty surveyed 
the chaotic earth with complacency, as the theatre 
upon which he was about to display his glorious 
power, and wisdom, and goodness, in the new creation. 

KEFLECTIONS. 

In the chaotic condition of our globe at this period, 
we may see a striking and instructive emblem of the 
present disordered state of the moral world. At this 
dismal date, how strange, how mysterious was the 
aspect of our planet — a vast heaving deep, a boundless 
desolation, all wrapped in dread and impenetrable 
gloom ! How different from everything that, before- 
hand, we would have expected from Infinite Wisdom 
and Infinite Power ! Yet not less strange or dismal 
has been the aspect of the world of mankind. What 



74 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

disorder and conflicts, what depravity and ignorance 
have marked our race through every period of its 
existence ! Its history, for the most part, has been a 
history of sin and its fruits, a history of tyranny, 
slavery, lust, carnage and devastation, in every region 
of the globe. A vast preponderance of the whole 
population of the earth has been lying for hundreds 
and thousands of years, in a state of barbarism and 
misery, sunk in such gross ignorance and superstitions 
as have degraded them far below the rank of rational 
beings. Man, for the most part, appears to have spent 
his transient existence in diffusing the miseries which 
himself has been doomed to suffer, in destroying his 
fellow-creatures for gain, in deceiving and being de- 
ceived, in robbing and being robbed. u The bulk of 
mankind have been nothing more than a crowd of 
wretches, equally criminal and unfortunate." And if 
from these we rise to the remaining fraction of the race, 
who may be deemed more fortunate, because more en- 
lightened, we still encounter scenes scarcely less painful 
and perplexing. Not to speak of the falsehood and in- 
justice, lust and pollution, which infest all ranks and 
conditions ; how unaccountably mysterious are many of 
the dispensations of heaven itself! Toil, disappoint- 
ment, disease and sorrow, constitute the lot of man in 
his most favorable circumstances. The lamentations 
of the unhappy are heard on every side. The world 
is truly a vale of tears. And this painfully mysterious 
aspect of the world has ever been a matter of wonder 



THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 75 

to the good, and the foundation of much complaint and 
skepticism to the wicked. But the condition of our 
globe at this primeval period offers a suggestion that 
may be of profit to both. 

To judge of the wisdom or goodness of Divine provi- 
dence from the present aspect of the world, would be 
as if a spectator of the earth, in its confusion and dark, 
ness, had attempted to form an estimate of its appear- 
ance when finished and furnished complete. Who, 
looking on it then, would have supposed that the beauty 
of Eden would so soon stand upon its surface, with all 
its fair and enchanting scenery of hill and vale, groves 
and meads and murmuring streams, the happy abode 
of innocence and love ? So of the moral world : this 
also is now in what may be called its chaotic or transi- 
tion state. To us, the work appears but in its prepara- 
tory or incipient stage. We see only the beginnings 
of things. Providence is far from completing its plans. 
The gospel of the kingdom has not yet fulfilled its 
mission ; mercy and grace have not accomplished their 
benignant designs. To understand and appreciate 
the symmetry and magnificence of the rising moral 
structure, we must wait till it is completed. The same 
mighty Hand and unerring Wisdom that at the 
beginning reduced to harmony, and reared to beauty, 
the confused and tumultuous elements of nature, will, 
in the fulness of time, disembroil the plans of Provi- 
dence, and justify all his ways with man. As from 
the primeval chaos, when all lay in darkness without 



76 THE CHAOTIC PERIOD. 

form and void, there arose the world in its paradisiacal 
form and fashion, resplendent with the light of the 
sun, and decked with all the beauties of nature ; so at 
last, from the heavings and conflicts of this moving sea 
of humanity, there shall arise a fair moral system, 
complete in all its parts, where God shall be seen all 
in all, and the whole intelligent universe admire the 
beauty of his moral character, and the grandeur of his 
sovereign control. As the mysterious drama of our 
fallen world shall close, " A voice shall be heard from 
every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, 
and under the earth, saying, Blessing, and honor, and 
power, and glory, be to Him that sitteth upon the 
throne! Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord 
God Almighty ; just and true are all thy ways, thou 
King of saints." 



Ito Sim gag. 



The dense and darkening atmosphere is rarijied, and Light is introduced. 




THE FIRST DAY. 

Gen. 1 : 3-5. — And God said, Let there be light ; and there was light. 
And God saw the light that it was good : and God divided the light 
from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he 
called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 

ITH these words commences the history of the 
six days creations. In verse first, as before 
y)p observed, the inspired Historian announces the 
absolute origination of the heaven and the earth ; 
in the second verse, he describes the condition of our 
planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation ; and 
at the third verse, he begins the account of the six days' 
work. In addition to the reasons already given in 
support of this interpretation of the sacred text, we 
may here observe, that the history of each of the 
succeeding days begins with this particular and set 
form of words, " And God said, Let," etc. It is but 
natural, therefore, to conclude that the narration of the 
first day's work begins with the third verse, where the 
same formula is employed, " And God said, Let there 
be light." Here, then, Moses enters upon the details 
of that stupendous process which perfected the earth 
as a habitation for man. 

The globe having been thrown into a state of con- 
fusion and desolation, and the plants and animals of 

79 



80 THE FIRST DA Y. 

the former epoch having been destroyed by the chaos, 
as described under the second verse, it pleased the Cre- 
ator to occupy six successive days, to restore and fur- 
nish it, as the dwelling-place of the creature he was 
about to make in his own image. Few readers need be 
informed that the theory has been advanced that these 
days are not literal days, but immensely long periods. 
Much ingenuity and learning have been exercised in 
attempts to make the Divine Eecord countenance this 
idea. While we regard the great facts of geology as 
being established by proofs second only to the mathe- 
matical demonstrations of astronomy, yet we are con- 
strained to say, that the method pursued to establish 
this interpretation does not appear to us to be plain and 
fair dealing with the Word of God; but rather a 
" torturing of the Book of Life out of its proper mean- 
ing." If the first chapter of Genesis can be made to 
mean what these theories express, other portions of 
Scripture can, with equal ease, be made to mean almost 
anything that the whim of man may desire, or his 
imagination invent. Here the point to be decided is, 
not what this Scripture can be made to mean, but what 
does it mean ; what idea was it intended to convey ? 
We believe that it means literal and natural days, for 
the following reasons : 

1. No language could have been chosen more explicit, 
nor any terms found in the Hebrew more definite, to 
express literal days, than those here employed. There 
was a first day, a second day, a third day, etc., each 



THE FIRST DAY. 81 

opening and closing with a definite evening and morn- 
ing — literally , rendered, There was evening, there was 
morning, day one ; There was evening, there was morn- 
ing, day two, etc. 

2. Moses, who penned the record, we have every 
reason to believe understood these days, and meant that 
his readers should understand them as literal days ; for 
we «cannot suppose for a moment that he ever had in 
his mind anything like the ideas suggested by modern 
geology. 

3. God himself refers to them as literal days in the 
commandment given from Sinai, " Remember the Sab- 
bath day to keep it holy ; for in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested on the seventh day." No impartial mind can 
read these words and come to any other conclusion than 
that the six days, as well as the seventh, were literal 
days. 

4. There is no adequate reason for thus departing 
from the plain and natural sense of the record. The 
view we have taken of the chaos, under the second 
verse, does away with the principal difficulties, which 
made it necessary, as some have thought, to adopt the 
interpretation, that the creative days were so many 
vast periods* If it be admitted, (and we have already 
seen what abundant reasons we have to admit,) that 
the condition of the earth immediately previous to the 
human period was that of a watery chaos, a creation, 

* See pp. 58-64. 



82 THE FIRST DAY. 

and such a creation as that here described, must have 
followed ; for the present races of plants and animals 
must have been produced since. And as the highest 
geological authorities lay it down among their clearest 
and best established deductions, that the present flora 
and fauna (for the most part at least) were produced at 
the commencement of the human period, the very date 
to which Moses assigns their creatio7i—why might not 
that creation, then, have been accomplished in six 
days ? Wherein lies the difficulty of believing this ? 
In other words, what is there to forbid the literal in- 
terpretation of this record ? 

On the first day it was said, " Let there be light ; and 
there was light." Now, which is the more natural and 
consistent — to suppose that this fiat was followed by 
instant obedience ? or by obedience that was slow and 
tardy, extending through an indefinitely long epoch ? 
Is there anything improbable or unscientific in the 
idea, that, in obedience to this omnipotent command, as 
in response to a general discharge of electricity, the 
dense and darkening vapors which enveloped the globe 
were set in immediate commotion, dispersing, precipi- 
tating, and breaking up, so as to permit light to penetrate 
from above ? 

The history of the second day reads, " Let there be 
a firmament dividing the waters from the waters, and 
it was so." That is, Let there be established over the 
earth's surface a clear expanse, with the vapors col- 
lected into clouds, and floating, in appearance, as 



THE FIRST DAY. 83 

another ocean over head. What is there in all this to 
forbid our believing that, as soon as it was said, it was 
done, and that in the day God commanded, it was es- 
tablished? 

On the third day the fiat went forth, " Let the waters 
be gathered together, and let the dry land appear." 
Now, as has been shown, a comparatively slight depres- 
sion of those portions of the earth's surface forming the 
beds of the oceans would effect all that is here im- 
ported ; and geology teaches us that such subsidences 
had before taken place, sometimes slowly, and some- 
times suddenly, times unnumbered ; and not only that, 
but points to this very period as the date of certain 
well-known depressions. The literal interpretation of 
this chapter, however, does not require us to hold that 
the continents and islands were at once thoroughly 
drained, and covered with vegetation throughout their 
whole length and breadth, as we now see them ; it is 
sufficient to believe that such tracts of them were made 
suitably dry on this day, as were designed by the Cre- 
ator to receive the several species of the plants about to 
be created ; while the process of draining over other 
vast regions might have gone on more or less slowly 
long after, till the passing waters sank, and became, for 
the most part, confined, as of old, within the banks of 
the ancient lakes and rivers. On these drier tracts of 
land were implanted species of the new-created vegeta- 
tion, of a nature suited to their respective soils and 
climates; and from these, as so many centres, they 



84 THE FIRST BAY. 

spread in every direction, till the surface of the globe, 
generally, was covered with them. Now, what is there 
incredible in the view that all this was done in a day ? 
Nay, we ask, what has there ever been discovered in 
the sea, or on the land, that may not be explained in 
entire harmony with it ? On the other hand, indeed, 
the supposition that this day was a period of un~ 
measured and immeasurable duration, does involve us, 
among other serious difficulties, in the grave one of 
holding that herbs, shrubs and trees flourished and 
blossomed, and matured seeds and fruits in darkness, 
even ages before the sun had ever once shone upon the 
face of the earth, for the sun did not appear until the 
fourth period. 

On the fourth day " God made " — that is, appointed, 
not created — " two great lights ; the greater light to 
rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night ;" 
of which we understand the meaning to be, that dark- 
ness having long enveloped the earth, God now fully 
restored the rule of the greater light over the day, and 
that of the lesser over the night, by clearing the firma- 
ment on this day into a pure azure sky, so as to disclose, 
for the first time, the form of the moon in her bright- 
ness, and the orb of the sun in his unobscured glory. 
And here we ask, again, what is there in the heavens 
above, or on the earth beneath, that renders it in any 
degree improbable that this clearing of the firmament 
was done in a single day ? 

On the fifth and sixth days, the sea and land were 



THE FIRST DAY. 35 

peopled with living creatures. Now,' vhile we take 
the record in its literal sense, we do not suppose that 
animals were created in anything like the vast numbers 
we see at present occupying the earth, the air, and the 
water. We are expressly informed that the human 
race have descended from a single pair, Adam and Eve ; 
and each particular species of birds, beasts, etc., now 
living, however numerous it may have become, may 
have proceeded in like manner from a single pair. 
These original pairs, we may suppose, were created and 
placed on those tracts of land lying in climates, and 
planted with vegetation suitable to their respective na- 
tures ; and from these centres, as they multiplied, they 
spread until the whole earth was peopled. And we ask, 
once more, what is there in all the domain of nature to 
deter us from believing that these various living crea- 
tures, in their respective localities, were thus created in 
one day, and in obedience to one and the same fiat ? 
What difficulty is removed, or what advantage is 
gained, by supposing that their production occupied a 
period of unnumbered ages? Not any. We say, 
then, that there is no adequate cause or reason for 
thus departing from the plain and natural meaning of 
the record. 

The fine " theories " and beautiful " visions " of 
mighty periods, that have been invented to relieve us 
of a few seeming difficulties connected with the sacred 
history, will be found, without exception, when duly 
studied, to involve more numerous and vastly more se- 



86 THE FIRST DA Y. 

rious mculties, so far as the Bible is concerned. The 
remedies proposed are worse than the disease they are 
designed to remove. By forsaking the more simple and 
natural interpretation of this chapter, nothing is gained, 
much is lost, and everything is hazarded. These inge- 
nious theories may have been wrought out from praise- 
worthy motives, and may have been presented on the 
altar of Revelation, under the impression that they 
were acceptable offerings ; but the Word of God declines 
the oblations, and, as we believe, disclaims the neces- 
sity, and disapproves of the expedient. 

While we thus hold the six days of creation to be 
days measured by so many revolutions of the earth on 
its axis, we may, at the same time, regard the works 
done in these several days as standing representative of 
corresponding works done through all the preceding 
epochs of our planet's history. It may even have been 
the Divine intention that the works here described should 
thus symbolize all the operations of his hands that had 
gone before on the earth ; and herein, perhaps, lies the 
reason why no account, no mention of former creations, 
is to be found in this chapter. For one event to stand, 
in this way, representative of another, is not uncommon 
in the Scriptures. For example, the passage describing 
the coming of the Son of Man in judgment against 
Jerusalem, in its full import, passes down to the close 
of time, and as truly describes his coming on the clouds 
of heaven to judge the world. In like manner the 
record of this chapter may, in its representative or sym- 



THE FIRST DAY. 87 

bolical signification, run back and describe the doings 
of the Most High to the beginning of time. Now, ge- 
ology claims that there have been numerous and suc- 
cessive creations; that new and higher species were 
repeatedly introduced at distant intervals. " Twenty- 
seven times," says D'Orbigny, " have distinct creations 
repeopled all the earth with plants and animals." The 
last of these creations, whatever be their number, by 
universal consent, was the Adamic, or that which took 
place at the commencement of the human epoch. Now, 
the description given of this last creation, so far as the 
Divine wisdom, power and goodness were concerned in 
its production, is a description of all the others. The 
words are perfectly true as describing the last creation, 
and the last creation is equally true as representing, 
those that went before. The account here given of the 
last elevation of the dry land at the Divine command, is 
a correct and truthful representation of all other eleva- 
tions that preceded it. The description given of the 
last creation of fishes, of birds, of beasts, is, in like 
manner, a true and correct picture of all similar crea- 
tions of fishes, of birds, of beasts, that had before taken 
place. And so of all the rest. The Mosaic record, 
therefore, taken in this light, is a true and real history 
of the whole creative work of God through all the 
epochs from the beginning. 

While, to some, as we have just seen, six natural 
days seem too short a period for the accomplishment of 
the great work of creation, others there have been to 



88 THE FIRST DAY. 

whom this space appeared too long. The representation 
that the work was done progressively, and not instanta- 
neously, has been objected to, and declared unworthy of 
God. But such caviling can proceed only from equal 
ignorance and unbelief. The progressive plan was 
adopted, not to relieve God, but to profit man. Had 
the entire work of creation been accomplished in one 
instant, it would have been totally incomprehensible, 
and its history altogether useless, except as deciding 
the point, that the world is not eternal. In that case, 
the first verse would have contained the whole. But 
how much more interesting, comprehensible, and de- 
lightful is the record as it now stands. That the world 
was made by successive stages detracts nothing from 
the grandeur of the operation, or from the glory of the 
Creator. He who could do these things in the sublime 
manner here related, could have done them in any 
other way that pleased him. The history of creation, 
as we have it in this chapter, is the noblest history that 
was ever written by the pen of man. No history has 
been so much admired by critics, even from the time of 
Longinus to the present day. 

And God said, that is, God willed. We are not to 
suppose that there was any vocal utterance. "God 
said " is equivalent to God willed. " His speaking is 
his willing, and his willing is his doing." 

Let there be light ; and there was light. A more lit- 
eral translation would have been, Light, be ; and light 
was. This sentence has always been admired by men 



THE FIRST DAY. 89 

of literary taste as one of surpassing sublimity. It is 
to be observed, however, that its grandeur lies not so 
much in the words as in the majestic idea. God speaks, 
and it is done. He saith, Light, be ; and, behold, light 
is, under the whole heaven ! 

And there ivas light. At the oinnific command, the 
dense and impenetrable barrier of watery vapors, which 
had accumulated and rested down upon the face of the 
earth, enshrouding it in thick darkness, instantly be- 
gan to clear away, and to permit the rays from above 
to penetrate and produce day — not a day of unclouded 
brightness, but as of the gray morning — a dark and 
heavy, and sunless day, for the body of the sun did not 
appear until the fourth day. 

And God saw the light that it was good — good as fully 
and happily answering the ends for which it was at first 
made, and was now reproduced. 

And God divided the light from the darkness — that 
is, appointed to each its place and duration, as deter- 
mined by the revolution of the earth upon its axis. 

And God called the light Day ; and the darkness he 
called Night. Light and darkness were once more set- 
tled in such a constant succession, that distinct names 
were given to them. 

And the evening and the morning were the first day. 
This is a Hebrew phrase denoting a whole day. The 
evening is probably mentioned first, because darkness 
preceded the light. On the ground of this recorded 
order of things, in the Sacred Book, the Jews reck- 



90 THE FIRST DA Y. 

oned their day of twenty-four hours from evening to 
evening: 

The one great product of this day, then, now to be 
illustrated, is 

LIGHT. 

And God said, Let there be light ; and there was light. 

Of all the elements that occupy a high place, and 
exert an important influence, in the great laboratory 
of the universe, Light is the first and most remarkable. 
This, the issue of the first fiat of creation, presents to 
the inquiring mind, a series of wonders of the most 
sublime character. Over all, and through all, it spreads 
its etherial force, and manifests, in all its operations, 
powers and mysteries which may well inspire the soul 
with the most exalted and reverential wonder. 

While we are acquainted with many of the laws by 
which light is governed, its essential nature is unknown. 
Some philosophers suppose that it is an emanation of 
inconceivably minute particles from the surfaces of lumi- 
nous bodies, and that these act upon the retina of the 
eye, as odorous particles do on the nerves of smell. 
Others hold that it is the production of undulations 
excited in a subtle ether pervading all space, which 
travel onward to the eye, as vibrations in the atmos- 
phere do to the ear. Though long made the subject 
of unwearied study, and of endlessly varied experiments, 
the essential nature of light still remains a mystery. 



THE FIRST DAY. 91 

In the record before us, light is put down as the first 
production in the creative process. Now this is the 
natural and necessary order of things, for the existence 
of light was a prerequisite to all that was to follow — to 
the functions of the waters, the salubrity of the atmos- 
phere, the growth of vegetation, and the welfare of 
every living thing. Hence we see the philosophic 
correctness of the sacred narrative. 

Light is the very life-blood of nature; without it 
every material organization would fade and perish. 
Where the influence of light is not, there death and 
silence hold supreme dominion. Light is indispensable 
to all life ; the world was a dead chaos before its crea- 
tion ; and mute disorder would again be the consequence 
of its annihilation. Every beauty that adorns, every 
charm which spreads itself over this rolling globe, are 
directly dependent upon its radiations and luminous 
powers. It is the fountain of all our knowledge of the 
external universe, and through it we receive all the 
undefinable pleasures arising from the features of 
beauty, the grandeur of the landscape, and the glory of 
the heavens. 

Light is essential to the vegetable world. Without it 
not a plant, not a grain of seed, not a blade of grass, 
could attain its designed perfection. It is true, indeed, 
that the vegetative process will go on in some sort, and 
to a limited extent, even in absolute darkness ; but light 
is indispensable to the vigor, and to the useful and or- 
namental properties, of plants. When deprived of light, 



92 THE FIRST DAY. 

all plants nearly agree in the qualities of their juices ; 
the most pungent then become insipid, the most fra- 
grant inodorous, and the most variegated of a uniform 
whiteness ; and while vegetation that grows in a natural 
situation will burn when dry, that which has sprung up 
in a dark cellar contains nothing inflammable. We see, 
then, that to the agency of light, vegetation owes its 
taste, its smell, its color, and its inflammability, all im- 
portant properties. So necessary is light to plants, 
that many of them will spontaneously throw open 
wide their flowers, and even exert a limited power of 
locomotion, bending towards it, in order to catch its 
vivifying influences. 

Equally important is light to animal nature. Ex- 
periments of various kinds have proved this in reference 
to inferior creatures. And the due and constant influ- 
ences of light are found very favorable to the regular 
conformation of the human body, and to the vigorous 
development of the mental faculties. Deformity and 
idiocy are most frequently found, and frightful diseases 
commit their most terrible ravages, in the ill-lighted 
habitations of narrow streets and northern exposure, 
where the salutary beams of light seldom, or in but 
scanty measures, shed their beneficial influence. A 
well-lighted apartment, and one commanding a south- 
ern view, is the most desirable, because the most 
promising, to the feeble Invalid. Eeliable statistics 
prove that, in general, the chances of recovery in the 
well-lighted wards of hospitals are four to one, as com- 



THE FIRST DAY. 93 

pared to the chances in dark or ill-lighted wards. 
" Light," says Dr. Child, " is one of the best and cheap, 
est of nature's tonics ; and unless it be habitually 
absorbed, neither animal nor vegetable can permanently 
prosper. Hence this needful medicament, by Divine 
arrangement, is poured out in daily streams upon the 
face of the whole earth." And God saw the light that 
it was good. 

The illustration of many interesting properties of 
light will come in more appropriately under the fourth 
day, on which the great orbs of light were ushered in, 
which, therefore, we defer till we come to that stage of 
creation. 

KEFLECTIONS. 

Analogies between the material and moral worlds 
are always traced by enlightened piety with equal 
pleasure and profit ; and the work of this day presents 
us with an analogy of this kind full of interesting 
instruction. 

The earth, even in its void and formless condition, 
floated and revolved in an ocean of light, which cease- 
lessly flowed all around from the great central sun ; but 
the convulsions which it had suffered — the upheaving 
of the sea and the submerging of the land — had wrapped 
it in so dense an atmosphere of darkening vapors, that 
in vain the descending beams struggled to penetrate. 
Not a ray reached, or perhaps approached, its watery 
surface ; unmitigated and universal darkness, therefore, 



94 THE FIRST DAY. 

rested upon the face of the deep. This condition of 
the material globe presents us with a true emblem of 
the world of mankind, previous to the advent of the 
Sun of Righteousness. All here, too, was lying in 
moral darkness and disorder; the whole race was 
wrapped in deep spiritual night. The great enemy of 
man, Satan, had disturbed all the moral elements of 
the world — had, by the disruptive force of his instiga- 
tions, everywhere upheaved and broken the even strata 
of social order and virtue ; had submerged the precepts 
of the Divine Law beneath the turbid waters of igno- 
rance and superstition ; and had beclouded all correct 
knowledge of the true and living God in the corrupt 
exhalations of idolatry and lust. Placing himself 
between God and man, like the impervious clouds of 
ancient chaos, the great foe had sought, and sought 
with direful success, to intercept every beam from 
heaven ; he had thrown his dark and hellish shadow 
athwart the whole globe, and the gloom of his presence 
had fallen like the pall of death over all human hope. 
No scene or circumstance in the history of our planet, 
save the night of primeval chaos, supplies an adequate 
emblem of the state of mankind at this time. As the 
brightest meteor in the midst of that dank and palpa- 
ble darkness would have been invisible at the distance 
of a few fathoms : so found the Son of God himself 
amid the moral darkness that had invested the earth. 
" The light shineth in darkness," said He, " but the 
darkness comprehendeth it not," admitteth it not. So 



THE FIRST DAY. 95 

ignorant, so debased, had mankind become, that they 
neither understood his instructions, nor appreciated his 
character. Here, as at the beginning, was darkness 
which omnipotence alone could dissipate. 

Again : as in the natural so in the moral world, the 
work of illumination was to be progressive. Though 
light was introduced upon the earth on the first day, 
yet it was not until the fourth that the sun looked 
down from an unclouded sky, and illumined and 
animated with all his brilliancy the face of the new 
creation. And such appears to be the manner decreed 
for the moral enlightenment of the world. The light 
of truth introduced by Jesus Christ was not to effect 
the complete and permanent illumination of the globe 
all at once, but was ordained to grow brighter and 
brighter unto the perfect day — the day when its beams 
shall encircle and embrace the earth, and when He, by 
his spiritual presence, shall reign in a glorious manner 
over a redeemed, sanctified and happy world ; our fallen 
race having become one vast, virtuous, peaceful family, 
and our distracted earth the seat of one grand, triumph- 
ant, and adoring assembly ! 

Bright and blessed prospect! But why should its 
consummation be so long delayed? Why did not the 
Sun of Righteousness complete at once the work of 
illumination in our benighted world? Such questions 
are not for us, the creatures of a day. With equal 
propriety we might ask, Why did not God bring forth 
the sun in his unobscured splendor on the morning of 



96 THE FIRST DAY. 

the first day ? or, why was our planet left without a 
human tenant through all the vast periods of the pre- 
Adamite earth ? " Even so Father, for so it seemed 
good in thy sight." — Happy he, who, amid all the con- 
fusion of the world and the mystery of providence, is 
able to keep his eye and faith on Him, who is at the 
centre of all the movements of the universe, and work- 
eth all things after the counsels of his own will. 



She jfocond gag. 



The Firmament with its properties and functions is established. 



THE SECOND DAY. 

Genesis 1 : 6-8. — And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst 
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God 
made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firma- 
ment from the waters which were above the firmament : and it was so. 
And God called the firmament Heaven : and the evening and the morning 
were the second day. 

UCH is the brief history given us of the great 




work of the second day ; no particulars, no de- 
tails are presented. We are favored only with 
the naked fact ; that fact, however, brings before 
us for our study a series of phenomena of the most im- 
portant and interesting character. 

Let there he a firmament. The meaning of the He- 
brew word here translated " firmament/' is expansion, 
attenuation, elasticity, out-spreading, which are all 
terms expressive of the properties of the atmosphere. 
By firmament, therefore, we are to understand, not the 
starry heavens, but the whole mass of fluids, consisting 
of air, vapors, electricity and other matters, which im- 
mediately encompass the earth. 

And divided the waters which were under the firma- 
ment from the waters which were above the firmament. 
At the Almighty word, the vast shroud of vapors which 

still hung over the face of the globe, was divided ; part 

99 



100 THE SECOND DAY. 

was condensed, and fell in the form of rain to the waters 
that covered the face of the earth ; and part was rati- 
fied, and ascended far above, forming clouds. And 
there " in the higher strata of the atmosphere, the y lay, 
thick and manifold — an upper sea of great waves, sepa- 
rated from those beneath by the transparent firmament, 
and, like them, too, impelled in rolling masses by 
the wind."* Thus were the waters divided from the 
waters. 

And God called the firmament Heaven. " Heaven," 
therefore, is of the same import as "firmament," and 
does not include the region of the stars, but that of the 
circumambient atmosphere only. 

And the evening and the morning were the second day. 
The earth accomplished another revolution on its axis 
since the great work began. 

From the foregoing exposition, it will be seen that 
this Day brings before us, for illustration, the various 
phenomena of the atmosphere — its mass and composi- 
tion, its currents, its evaporating function, its electricity, 
its formation of snow and hail, and its office as a me- 
dium of communication — all subjects rich in exhibitions 
of the wisdom, power and goodness of the Great Archi- 
tect of nature. 

* Hugh Miller. ' 



THE SECOND DAY. 101 

THE ATMOSPHERE. 

And God said, Let there be a firmament. 

The atmosphere, like an ocean, overlies the whole 
surface of the earth ; in fact, it is an ocean ; and it is 
literally true, that, like crabs and lobsters, we live and 
move and spend our days at the bottom of a sea — an 
aerial sea. This atmospheric ocean rises far above us, 
and, like that of waters, has its waves, its currents, and 
its tides. It is found to grow more rarified, as well as 
colder, as we ascend towards its upper limit, which is 
supposed to be about forty-five miles above the level of 
the sea. Barometrical observations, however, show 
that on ascending to the height of three and a half 
miles, (nearly that of Cotopaxi,) we leave behind us, by 
weight, more than one-half the whole mass of the at- 
mosphere. And from the experience of aeronauts, it is 
believed that there is no such air as man can breathe at 
an elevation of eight miles ; probably death w^ould be 
the certain consequence of exceeding seven, though 
some, of late, at great risk and suffering, have ascended 
to nearly that height. On the summit of Mount Blanc, 
which is a trifle under three miles, the sensations of 
those who make the ascent are very painful, owing to 
the levity of the air ; the flesh puffs out, the head is 
oppressed, the respiration is difficult, and the face be- 
comes livid ; whilst the temperature is cold almost past 
endurance. At an elevation of fifty miles from the 



102 THE SECOND DAY. 

earth's surface, the cold is calculated to be 132° below 
Zero, Fahr. 

This ocean of air, like that of water, has also its 
iveiglit and pressure. People, in general, are not aware, 
because they are not conscious, of any weight resting 
upon them from the atmosphere ; yet reliable experi- 
ments prove that at the sea level it presses with a force 
equal to 14 1 pounds on every square inch, or 2,100 
pounds on every square foot, or 58,611,548,160 pounds 
on every square mile ; or on the whole surface of the 
earth with a weight equal to that of a solid globe of 
lead 60 miles in diameter ! How few reflect that they 
live under an ocean of such stupendous weight ! But 
to bring this fact more sensibly before the mind, we may 
state that the atmospheric pressure on the whole sur- 
face of a medium-sized man is no less than 14 tons — 
a weight that would instantly crush him, as hollow ves- 
sels collapse when sunk deep in the ocean, but for the 
elasticity and equal pressure of the air on every part 
without, and the counterbalancing pressure and elasticity 
of the air within. 

The air encompassing the earth is a compound sub- 
stance, made up of two gases, mixed in the proportion 
of twenty-one parts of oxygen to seventy-nine parts of 
nitrogen, by measure ; mixed with these is a small pro- 
portion of carbonic acid gas, which does not exceed one 
two-thousandth part of the whole volume of the atmos- 
phere. Whether the air is taken from the greatest 
depths, or the most exalted heights which man has ever 



THE SECOND DAY. 103 

readied, this proportion of the oxygen and nitrogen 
gases is maintained invariably. The air on the summit 
of Chimborazo, or on the arid plains of Arabia, or on the 
pestilential Delta of the Niger, gives the same proportion 
of these gases as we find in that of the most temperate 
and salubrious countries of the globe. Considering the 
vast and varied exhalations that constantly ascend from 
sea and land, together with the incessant agitation of 
winds and tempests, this stands before us as a most as- 
tonishing fact, indeed ! But it is not more wonderful 
than it is important. No possible change could be made 
in the composition of the air, without rendering it in- 
jurious both to animal and vegetable life. If the quan- 
tity of nitrogen were but a little increased, all the vital 
functions of man would be performed with difficulty, 
pain and slowness, and the pendulum of life would soon 
come to a stand. If, on the other hand, the proportion 
of oxygen were increased, all the processes of life would 
be quickened into those of a fever, and the animal 
fabric would soon be destroyed, as it were, by its own 
fires. Again, if, instead of the present proportions, 
these gases were mixed, two parts of nitrogen to one of 
oxygen, the result would be nitrous oxide, to breathe 
which for ten minutes would convert the whole human 
race into so many intoxicated maniacs, and the earth 
into one vast Bedlam or Pandemonium. Or, again, if 
two parts of oxygen and two parts of nitrogen were the 
proportions, the mixture would be nitric oxide, which 
is of so irritating a nature, that the glottis contracts 



104 THE SECOND DAY. 

spasmodically when any attempt is made to breathe it. 
Or, once more, if the quantity of oxygen be still in- 
creased over the last-named proportion, we have per- 
oxide of nitrogen, which is still more fatal to all living 
organization. Lastly, if five parts of oxygen were 
united with two of nitrogen, the mixture would be 
none other than aqua fortis, whose destructive proper- 
ties are well known to all. We see, then, that out of a 
thousand possible proportions, one only is suitable to the 
nature of man and beast, and that one has been adopted ! 
Equal wisdom and goodness are displayed in the rela- 
tive gravity or weight given to these gases. Oxygen 
is the principle that sustains life and combustion ; nitro- 
gen is incapable of supporting either. Immersed in 
pure nitrogen, both life and flame are instantly extin- 
guished. Now, " in breathing, the air which is evolved 
from the lungs, at every expiration, consists chiefly of ni- 
trogen, which is entirely unfit to be breathed again, and, 
therefore, has been made a little lighter than common 
air, so that it rises above our heads before the next in- 
spiration. Had nitrogen, instead of being thus a little 
lighter, been a slight degree heavier than natural air, 
it would have accumulated at the surface of the earth, 
and particularly in our dwellings, to such a degree as 
to have produced diseases, pestilence and death, in rapid 
succession. But, as now constituted, it flies upward, 
and we never breathe it again till it enters into new and 
salutary combinations.* 

* Christ. Phi., p. 35. 



THE SECOND DAY. 105 

Oxygen, as it exists in the air, appears to be the 
mildest of all elements ; it has neither taste nor smell, 
and seems to be devoid of all active properties. It 
bathes the most delicate plant and animal forms; it tra- 
verses the finest pores of flowers, and pervades the 
minutest cells of the lungs, without inflicting upon 
either the shadow of pain or injury. It seems to be 
perfectly bland and innocuous. Yet release it from the 
gossamer bonds which God has thrown around it, and 
it is one of the most powerful of the chemical elements. 
Beneath this apparent mildness there is concealed an 
energy so violent that, when once roused, nothing can 
withstand it. "A single spark will change its whole 
character, so that what seemed before inert and passive, 
becomes in an instant violent and irrepressible. The 
gentle breeze which was waving the corn, and fanning 
the browsing herd, becomes the next moment a con- 
suming fire, before which the most enduring works of 
man melt away into air." How wonderful is this 
double character of oxygen ! Who can sufficiently ad- 
mire the skill of him who has thus united in the same 
element perfect mildness and immeasurable power ! 

REFLECTIONS. 
On the mass of the atmosphere. Yast an appendage 
as this is to our globe, its dimensions and density have 
been adapted with the utmost exactness to the constitu- 
tion of all organized existences. Any material change 
in its mass would require a corresponding change in the 



106 THE SECOND DAY. 

structure of both plants and animals, and, indeed, in 
the whole economy of the world. If its mass were 
considerably reduced, all the difficulties experienced by 
travellers on the summits of lofty mountains, and by 
aeronauts at great elevations above the earth, would 
ensue ; on the other hand, if much increased, opposite 
and equally disastrous results would follow. If the 
atmosphere had been twice or three times its present 
mass, currents of air would move with double or triple 
their present force. With such a change nothing on 
sea or land could stand against a storm. But how 
happily do we find all things balanced as now constitu- 
ted. And how obvious, that, ere ever God had breathed 
forth the fluid air, in his all-comprehending Mind, its 
mass was measured and weighed, and the strength and 
wants of all living creatures duly estimated before one 
of them had been called into being. All the works of 
God have been done according to a determinate counsel 
and infallible foreknowledge. 

On the pressure of the atmosphere. Contemplating 
the enormous weight of the air, resting upon all things 
and all persons, who but must devoutly admire both 
the wisdom and the goodness of the Creator, in so ad- 
justing all the properties of the firmament, that under 
it we can breathe and walk and act with ease, uncon- 
scious of weight or oppression, while in fact we are 
every moment under a load, which, when reduced to 
figures, surpasses both our comprehension and belief. 
Marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ! 



THE SECOND DAY. 107 

On the composition of the atmosphere. How very 
wonderful is this ! When we reflect upon the propor- 
tions and combinations of its constituent elements, we 
cannot but look up with adoring reverence to its Divine 
Author. What wisdom, what power, what benevolence, 
have been exercised in arranging the chemical constitu- 
tion and agencies of this world, to adapt them unfail- 
ingly to the strength and wants of animals and of 
plants, even the most delicate and minute ! How very 
slightly the atmosphere of life differs from- one that 
would produce instant and universal death ! How 
trifling the change the Almighty had need make in the 
air we hourly breathe, to lay all the wicked and rebel- 
lious sons of men lifeless and silent in the dust ! 



THE WINDS. 
He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries. 

The infinitely minute particles composing the atmos- 
phere, are in perpetual motion and circulation. These 
movements constitute the winds; and they all originate 
in a difference in the density of one portion of the 
atmosphere as compared with another. And this 
difference of density is caused by the heat of the sun, 
the presence of vapor, and at times, more or less, by 
electricity. When the air near the surface of the earth 
at any point is heated by the reflected rays of the sun, 
it expands and becomes lighter ; then the surrounding 



108 THE SECOND DAY. 

air, which has remained colder, rushes in, causing the 
warmed and rarified air to ascend. This motion of the 
colder air is Wind. 

All this may be illustrated by a familiar occurrence. 
Let the door between a cold and a heated room be 
thrown open, and let a lighted candle be held in it. 
Near the floor the flame is strongly carried toward the 
heated room by the in-rushing current of cold air; but 
near the top of the door it is just as strongly driven 
towards the cold room by the out-going current of hot 
air. Precisely similar to what thus takes place between 
the two rooms is what takes place in the expanded 
firmament. 

Bearing the above illustration in mind, what are 
termed the sea and land breezes will be readily under- 
stood. Let us take, for an example, an island stand- 
ing alone in a tropical sea ; remembering the fact that 
land heats more readily, and again cools more rapidly, 
than water. As soon as the beams of the morning sun 
begin to warm the ground, the air over it is warmed 
and rarified in proportion ; the consequence is, the 
cooler and denser air which has been resting over the 
surrounding ocean, rushes in from all quarters, and the 
island is thus refreshed by a sea breeze. During the 
night the process is reversed. The island loses heat 
by radiation, and cools quicker than the sea ; and its 
atmosphere with it having become cooler and heavier, 
runs along the surface in every direction into, or rather 
under, that of the ocean, and there is in this manner 



THE SECOND DAY. 109 

produced a land hreeze. By this beautiful balancing 
of the warm and cool air, the languishing inhabitants 
of the islands and seaboard countries of the tropics are 
daily refreshed and invigorated. In the East and West 
Indies these fannings of nature are said to be inde- 
scribably reviving and delightful. 

What occurs between the two rooms, or between the 
sea and land air of an island, takes place on a grand 
scale between the whole equatorial regions of the globe 
and those of the poles. Here the polar regions corre- 
spond to the cold room, and the equatorial to the 
heated room. The air around the poles, being cold 
and heavy, flows along the earth's surface toward the 
equator; having reached the torrid zone, it becomes 
heated, and ascends to the higher elevations of the 
firmament, where it flows back over the colder air 
towards either pole, to begin again the same round. 
Thus two lower currents from the poles to the equator, 
and two superior currents from the equator to the poles, 
are in perpetual motion. 

How, then, it may be asked, are the variable winds 
of the temperate zones to be accounted for ? As the 
one current in its progress from the equator constantly 
becomes cooler, and the other in its approach toward 
the equator as constantly warmer, it follows, that at 
certain points they meet of equal weight and density, 
and thus encounter and impede one another; and this, 
together with the unequal temperature of sea and land 
over which they pass, and the influence of screening 



HO THE SECOND DAY. 

clouds, electrical disturbances, and changes of seasons, 
produce the variable and ever shifting winds of the 
more temperate regions. 

From the inferior and superior currents between the 
equator and the poles, result also the famous Trades, as 
they are called. On either side of the equator there is 
a broad region reaching to the 28th degree of latitude, 
where the wind blows regularly in one direction the 
year round. North of the equator, it comes from the 
northeast ; and south of the equator from the south- 
east. These, from their commercial advantages, have 
been termed the Trade Winds. In the production of 
these, the earth's axial rotation exerts a controlling 
influence. The speed of this rotation in the immediate 
neighborhood of the poles is mere nothing; midway 
between the poles and the equator, it is over ten miles 
per hour ; on the equator it is sixteen miles per hour. 
Now, as the cold current from the poles advances 
toward the equator, the surface beneath, for the above 
reason, sweeps forward with greater and greater 
velocity ; so that the aerial current at every step of its 
progress falls a little behind-hand ; that is, it is left a 
little further to the west than it otherwise would be. 
This loss goes on increasing, till the direction of the 
current from the north polar region is changed into 
southwest, and that of the one from the south polar 
region, into northwest. These two general currents 
from the northeast and southeast encounter each 
other in the torrid zone, and there combine, thus form- 



THE SECOND DAY. HI 

ing a general current from east to west, sweeping across 
both the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

The same cause makes the upper currents setting 
from the equator towards the poles, swerve in the oppo- 
site direction. The rotary motion in this case growing 
slower and slower, at each step in their progress toward 
the poles, they find themselves a little in advance of 
the earth's motion, that is, a little more to the east ; so 
that by the time that the northern current reaches the 
middle regions of the temperate zone, its course is north- 
east, and the result a prevailing southwesterly wind ; 
and when the southern current has reached a corre- 
sponding latitude, its direction is southeast, and thus 
gives a prevailing northwesterly wind. — How admira- 
ble the skill herein displayed, and how great the 
advantages secured ! The very same combination of 
agencies which produce the Trade Winds, are made 
likewise by the Great World Builder to produce winds 
which blow in the opposite direction — thus providing 
for the adventurous mariner a propitious breeze both to 
go and to return on his distant voyages. 

In the Indian Ocean the Trade wind is interrupted, 
and its course periodically changed, and from this 
circumstance receives the name Monsoon ; from April 
to October it blows from the southwest, and from 
October to April, from the northeast. This change is 
effected in the same manner as that of sea and land 
breezes. While southern Africa, on the one side, is 
basking in the full heat of the southern summer, the 



112 THE SECOND DAY. 

deserts of central Asia, and the high regions of the 
Himalayas, on the other side, are passing through the 
low temperature of their winter ; hence the air rushes 
from this colder quarter across the Indian Ocean 
towards the warmer regions of southern Africa, thus 
producing the northeast Monsoon. The reverse takes 
place when Asia is heated by the burning sun of the 
northern summer, while south Africa is cooled by its 
winter ; now the air blows in the opposite direction, 
and gives to India its southwest Monsoon. These 
winds also are great aids to navigation, as well as great 
blessings to the regions upon which they blow. In the 
southern part of the Indian Ocean, which does not 
come under the influences of these lands, the south- 
east Trade wind maintains its regular course through 
the year. 

Other and peculiar agitations of the atmosphere occur 
in different parts of the globe, such as the Harmattan 
of the African desert, the Sirocco of Greece and Italy, 
the Typhoon of the China seas, the Hurricane of the 
West Indies, and the Cyclone which revolves across the 
ocean. Of these, the immediate causes in which they 
originate, and the specific ends they are designed to 
accomplish, are for the most part equally obscure. But 
of this we may be sure, whatever incidental evils may 
attend them, that, like all the other cosmical arrange- 
ments, they are ultimately beneficial to the world. 
Winds are " nature's most efficient sanitary agents, by 
which she renovates the air that has become tainted 



THE SECOND DAY. 113 

through stagnation, and scatters the seeds of the pesti- 
lence that are growing up for destruction." 

REFLECTIONS. 

The foregoing subject may serve to teach us that all 
the works and ways of God, however discordant or dis- 
connected they may appear, are founded in wisdom and 
designed for good. To the uninformed nothing seems 
more uncertain, capricious and irregular than the times 
and courses of the winds; "fickle as the wind" has 
become a proverbial expression ; yet, as we have just 
seen, all the agitations and movements even of the 
wind, are governed by forces most delicately balanced, 
and acting according to the most infallible laws of 
nature — the constitution of the atmosphere, the form 
of the earth, its velocity on its axis, the cold of the 
Poles, and the heat of the Line, are all so regulated and 
fitted into each other, as to encircle the world with a 
magnificent and perpetual system of serial currents, 
essential to the welfare and convenience of its whole 
population. — The same holds true in the moral world. 
With our present limited and imperfect knowledge, 
many things in the lot of individuals, in the condition 
of nations, and in the government of the world, may 
appear to us irreconcilable with a just and wise Provi- 
dence. But this is our ignorance. Were we permitted 
to look outward from the great Central Throne, and 
could understand the relation of the agencies employed, 
and the connection of the ends to be accomplished by 



114 THE SECOND DAY. 

the Divine administration, we should see that, as with 
the wind, what now appears a mass of discordant agents, 
disconnected actions, and fortuitous results, were all ne- 
cessary and fitting parts of a harmonious system, and 
that every actor, every influence, every event, was 
brought forward in its intended connections, and at its 
appointed time. Such knowledge, noio, is too wonder- 
ful for us ; it is high, we cannot attain unto it. 

In the Hebrew, and also in the Greek Scriptures, the 
same word denotes both wind and spirit ; hence the 
former is often employed to illustrate the operations of 
the latter. The most notable lesson of the Great 
Teacher on the subject was conveyed under this com- 
parison. As the wind cannot he seen, but is known only 
by its effects, waving the vegetation, agitating the 
waters, or driving the clouds, so also the Spirit of God ■ 
in his presence with men. No man hath seen the 
Spirit at any time, but we are as well assured of his 
existence, and of his gracious agency, as if we beheld 
him with our eyes ; for we plainly see his effects, making 
the thoughtless serious, the profane prayerful, the proud 
and passionate meek and mild, the afflicted calm and 
peaceful, and the dying triumphant over death and the 
grave. As every effect must have a corresponding 
cause, these are as surely the fruits of a Holy Spirit as 
that the waves of the sea, and the motions of the 
clouds, are the effects of the wind. Happy the soul 
that has known his renewing power ! 



THE SECOND DAY. H5 



EVAPORATION. 

And God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament. 

This division of the waters was the most prominent 
feature of the second day's work. The process employed 
for its accomplishment, we may suppose, was that of 
evaporation. By this agency the dark and dank vapors 
were made to rise, and suspend themselves in clouds in 
the higher regions of the atmosphere, and thus leave a 
clear expanse or firmament over the face of the earth. 
And this agency, now called into such active exercise, 
was to remain in permanent operation, being indis- 
pensable to the welfare of the world, as without evapo- 
ration there could be no clouds, without clouds there 
could be no rain, without rain there could be no vege- 
tation or animals, and without vegetation or animals 
there could be no men. 

For the better understanding and appreciation of this 
wonderful process, let us suppose that it has never yet 
rained, that even a cloud has never been seen, and that 
under these circumstances the human family is placed 
upon the earth, and appointed to subsist upon what 
shall grow out of its soil. Soon they discover that 
moisture is indispensable to all vegetation, and that un- 
less the ground be watered, it will yield them nothing. 
Immediately upon this follows the inquiry, How is this 
to be done ? There, indeed, is the deep and wide sea — 



116 THE SECOND DAY. 

an abundance of water ; but here is the land rising far 
above its level. How can that water be raised hither, 
and how is it to be freed from its saline impurities, so as 
to be fit for the use of man, or beast, or the field? How 
is it to be drawn from its deep places, and carried in 
adequate quantities over the length and breadth of the 
plains, or hoisted and dispersed over the hills and 
mountains ? And how is this to be done perpetually, 
at the needed intervals, and in sufficient amounts for 
every region of the earth's surface ? Who that had 
never seen a shower or a cloud could have answered 
these questions? Who, in such a case, could have 
solved the alarming difficulties which they present? 
The happy and effective method contrived by the Great 
Architect would never have entered the human mind. 
Let us, then, contemplate the system of beautiful ad- 
justments by which our Father accomplishes all this 
for us, without labor, or assistance, or care on our 
part. 

Our first inquiry is, How is the toater of the ocean to 
be raised and freed from its salts, for watering the 
earth ? By evaporation ; and this is a wonderful opera- 
tion. Water, in its natural state, is 800 times heavier 
than atmosphere ; and but for our experience, that such 
a weighty element should rise and float in thin air, 
would appear to us as unlikely and impossible as that 
the gravel at the bottom of a lake should rise and swim 
on its surface. Yet God contrived a method by which 
this is effected with infinite ease every day. In what 



THE SECOND DAY. 117 

way, then, does water climb into the firmament, and 
float at the rarified altitudes of three or four miles, and 
even six miles, where cloudlets are sometimes seen ? 
The atmosphere is so constituted as to be capable of 
absorbing moisture and retaining it in an invisible state ; 
the warmer the air, the greater is its capacity for this. 
The air in a room measuring sixty feet each way, and 
at a temperature of 68° Fahr., is capable of taking up 
and holding no less than 252 pounds of water. Now, 
by the action of heat, water is converted into steam or 
vapor; and, in this state, it occupies a space 1600 times 
greater than in its liquid state, and is, therefore, much 
lighter than the atmosphere ; consequently it readily 
floats and ascends into its higher regions. In this way 
vast quantities of water, in the form of invisible vapor, 
are continually ascending from sea and land, and even 
from the regions of perpetual ice and snow. This vapor, 
having reached the higher and cooler altitudes of the 
firmament, gradually condenses into visible clouds, 
which are sometimes thousands of feet in thickness, and 
tens of thousands of acres in extent, and suspend in 
their dark folds immense quantities of water, ever ready 
to return to the earth from whence it arose. But if the 
water raised in this manner were to drop back on the 
spots from which it was produced, but little or no good 
would be effected. Hence arises 

A second question, How is the water treasured up in 
the clouds to he conveyed where it is needed ? What arm 
can reach and impel their mighty masses to the distant 



118 THE SECOND DAY. 

plains and the rising mountains ? To no purpose lias 
the machinery of evaporation been contrived and set in 
motion if this be not done. Vain, indeed, is the strength 
of man here. But just at this point another of the at- 
mospheric agencies is brought into happy operation. 
The beautiful system of air-currents or winds, described 
in the preceding chapter, pursuing their appointed 
courses, load themselves with the clouds, and upon their 
untiring wings bear them away hither and thither, 
as they are needed. A ship loading with merchan- 
dise at a foreign dock, or a train starting with freight 
from a railroad station, is not more explicit in its mis- 
sion, than the currents of the atmosphere, w r hich take in 
from sea, and lake, and river, cargoes of vapor, and 
hasten with them to the waiting isles, and to the hearts 
of continents, where we see them float their enriching 
stores over the dry and thirsty land. But these treas- 
ures of moisture, however suitable in their nature, or 
ample in their quantity, suspended at an elevation of 
two, three, or four miles, if they remain there, will 
be of no more benefit to the toiling husbandman, than 
so many barrels of provisions laid up in the moon 
would be to the famishing mariner. Hence springs 

A third question, How are these nebulous ships to be 
unloaded? How is the water to be released and 
brought down from the clouds? What can man do or 
contrive to effect this? Nothing. What, though by 
his skill he has learned to ascend into the sky ? What 
if he should construct a fleet of balloons, and dispatch 



THE SECOND DAY. 119 

an army thither ? Could they besiege those towering 
masses, and compel them to let go their watery stores ? 
or could they lay hold upon the skirts of those clouds, 
and pull them down into contact with the panting earth? 
No; none of these. Here is work above the power and 
beyond the skill of man. As water is converted into 
vapor by heat, so by the loss of heat vapor is recon- 
verted into water. Hence, when a cloud of vapor, 
either by entering a chillier stratum of air, or by coming 
in contact with colder currents, loses any portion of its 
former heat, a corresponding proportion of its aqueous 
contents is condensed into what may be called water- 
dust. And these dust-like particles, by coming into 
contact, unite ; and these again, in a similar manner, co- 
alesce with others still, till visible globules or drops are 
formed. And all this process is conducted with the ex- 
actness of number, weight and measure. A cloud, for 
example, floats in a current of air of 80° temperature ; 
if that current loses 9° of its heat, the cloud must cast 
overboard, in the form of a shower, one quarter of its 
load; and if it loses 21° of its heat, then it must part with 
one-half of its tonnage. Thus, as the heat gradually 
decreases, the condensation of the vapor gradually in- 
creases, forming, as just stated, the drops and the 
showers, which refresh and renew the face of the earth. 
And this brings us to 

A fourth arrangement of great moment and pleasing 
interest, The admirable way in which the clouds dis- 
charge their contents, viz., in soft and gentle showers. 



120 THE SECOND DAY. 

If, instead of this, they poured out their prodigious con- 
tents at once, in streams and floods, the consequences, 
frequently, would be destructive and lamentable in the 
extreme, as is evident from instances of this kind, 
which, at distant intervals, have taken place. Vegeta- 
tion would be destroyed, crops would be beaten into the 
ground, the trees stripped of their leaves and fruits, the 
fields ploughed into trenches, and the soil washed away, 
the streams suddenly swelled into impetuous and de- 
structive torrents ; so that presently every gathering or 
passing cloud would become like an avalanche, an ob- 
ject of terror to all who beheld it. Viewed in contrast 
with all this, how beautiful, how beneficent is the ex- 
isting arrangement ! Instead of descending like this, 
in ruinous cascades, we see the water trickling down in 
gentle and fertilizing drops, as if the nether side of the 
clouds were finely perforated into a sieve, and these 
drops alighting upon the earth, without bruising a 
flower or destroying a blade of grass. Softly the work 
begins, and softly it is carried on as the cloudy cisterns 
sail slowly over field and forest, hill and dale, leaving 
no district unvisited, no spot un watered. Who that in- 
telligently contemplates all this, but must be rapt into 
admiration and gratitude, in view of the designing wis- 
dom and diffusive goodness of God, as seen in every 
passing shower ! 

The work of evaporation and condensation is con- 
ducted so gently, so noiselessly, and, for the most part, 
so unobserved, that but comparatively few are aware 



THE SECOND DAY. 121 

of the stupendous magnitude of these operations. The 
quantity of water which is annually condensed and de- 
posited as dew, in Great Britain, has been estimated at 
five inches. In temperate climates, like that of Europe, 
with a mean temperature of 52°, the annual evapora- 
tion is equal to a layer of water thirty-seven inches 
deep. Within the tropics it is much greater, varying 
from eighty to one hundred inches. Take another 
fact : the Dead Sea is an inland sheet of water, seventy 
miles long by twenty miles wide, having no outlet. 
Into this discharges the celebrated Jordan, which, at its 
mouth, is 250 feet wide, and ten feet deep, and flows 
with a current that discharges daily over six millions 
of tuns of water. This influx has been going on, with- 
out intermission, year after year, and century after 
century; yet this lake neither rises nor overflows the 
surrounding country, but remains the same to-day that 
it was in the days of Moses and Joshua. And by 
what means has it been kept within these same fixed 
limits ? Obviously by evaporation, for its waters have 
no other way of escape. The same holds true of the 
Caspian Sea, and the Sea of Aral. And what is true of 
these is true of all the great oceans. Hence it follows, 
startling and incredible as the statement may at first 
appear, that as great an amount of water daily flows up- 
ward by evaporation into the skies, as all the rivers of 
the globe pour into the ocean, which has been computed 
to amount to 186,240 cubic miles per annum! a 
quantity sufficient to cover all the land of the earth to 



122 THE SECOND DAY. 

the depth of three feet. Such are the results accom- 
plished by the machinery of the firmament, which, under 
all its tremendous weight of labor, never wears out, 
never breaks down, never fails to do its work at the 
right time, and in the right way. 

The invisible moisture of the air, supplied by evapo- 
ration, besides watering and nourishing all the vegeta- 
tion of the earth, is essential to the welfare, and even 
to the life of everything that hath breath. Were the 
air at any time to become perfectly dry, it would, in its 
eager thirst, suck up all the fluids of our bodies, and 
speedily convert them into blackened mummies. Add 
to this the fact, that from the moisture existing in the 
air, the atmosphere derives its power of confining the 
heat, which is always endeavoring to radiate from the 
earth's surface into space ; through a perfectly dry at- 
mosphere this heat would freely and rapidly escape, 
so that but for the moisture present in the air, every 
night would place the earth's surface, as it were, in con- 
tact with that intense cold which exists in empty space 
— a degree of cold proven to be not less than 230° below 
Zero, Fahr., in which no earthly plant or animal could 
live even for an hour. Our safety — the safety and 
well-being of every living thing — depends on a free 
admixture of water with the air. How marvellous and 
how beneficent altogether, then, is the process of evapo- 
ration, the dividing of the waters from the waters! 



THE SECOND DAY. 123 

REFLECTIONS. 

In the foregoing subject we behold striking evidences 
of the unity of the Creator's plan, and the harmony of 
all the agencies embraced in it. Our reason is de- 
lighted, and imagination charmed, in contemplating the 
physical arrangements of our world from such a point 
of view as that we have just been occupying ; from it 
the atmosphere, the ocean, and the dry land, appear 
each as a part of that grand machinery upon which the 
well-being of all the living tenants of the earth de- 
pends ; and which, in their connections and beautiful 
adaptations, afford the most convincing proof that they 
all have had their origin in one Omniscient Mind, just 
as the several parts of a chronometer may be considered 
to have been contrived and made according to one 
human design. 

Vast amounts of toil and treasure have been expended 
to supply cities with water; and the aqueducts and 
hydraulic machinery constructed for these ends stand 
among the greatest of human achievements. Shall we 
point to one of these — a mere toy, bearing its scanty 
measure to a single group of humanity — as a monument 
of skill ? and shall we deny or overlook the skill and 
power Divine displayed in the self-acting, and self- 
perpetuating water-works of the firmament, which so 
abundantly supply the wants of a whole world's popu- 
lation, refresh with showers the vegetation of its four 
continents, and keep in perpetual flow their springs and 



124 THE SECOND DAY. 

streams and rivers all ? Can any being, claiming intel- 
ligence, view all this, and not instinctively adopt the 
devout language of the prophet, " He that thus calleth 
for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out on the 
face of the land, Jehovah is his name." 

And the scene?-?/ of the firmament — how much do we 
behold in this to admire and delight. What forms, 
what colors, what variety, what movements and magni- 
tudes ! How excellent the arrangement that, instead 
of leaving the rising vapors to overspread and obscure 
the whole heaven, breaks up and collects them into 
clouds, thus exhibiting to our delighted eyes " the blue 
etherial sky," and producing the pleasing alternations 
of shade and sunshine ! How charming the lights and 
shadows that are thus made to flit over the face of the 
landscape ; now we see the sun suddenly bursting forth 
from his hiding-place, and flooding all nature with his 
genial heat and glories; and now we witness the deep 
gigantic shadows of the flying clouds, careering, one 
after another, over field and forest and mountain-side ! 
Add to all this the endless combinations and shades 
and forms the clouds are made to assume, in order to 
relieve and adorn our skies. We have the delicate 
tints that first streak the morning sky, spreading and 
deepening, spreading and deepening, till the whole 
roof above is wreathed and lined with purple glories ! 
Then we have the silky vapors that, at the fervid noon, 
float in the highest azure, as if the altar-smoke of pure 
devotion on its way before the Highest. And, again, 



THE SECOND DAY. 125 

the clouds of thunder; these, at first sombre in color 
and limited in extent, soon begin to swell and put forth 
glistening fronts, and divide into chasms and precipices ; 
massy and almost motionless they stand, only piling, 
with every instant, higher and higher into the sky, till 
mountains of marble, and pinnacles of glittering 
adamant are presented to the view, casting far behind 
them their deep, dark shadows. Above all, we have 
the scenes of the setting sun. Amid what indescribable 
glories often sinks to rest the great monarch of the 
day : declining in his westward course, what manner 
of clouds await him, calmly resting on the verge of the 
horizon ; slowly he descends, and softly amid their 
resplendent folds he sinks — disappears ; and lo ! over 
his couch is drawn a veil of purple and crimson and 
scarlet, more gorgeous than the curtain of God's taber- 
nacle, and all glorious to behold ! And this, all this, 
was contrived to gratify the eye, to inspire the imagina- 
tion, and to fill with cheer and delight the hearts of the 
children of men. 

In this system of evaporation, clouds and showers, we 
have an instructive type of prayer and its gracious re- 
turns. In the natural world, the sun pours down his 
light and heat, and diffuses his genial influences over 
all ; yet warming and animating, in a special degree, 
those fields and hill-sides turned more directly towards 
him, and drawing upward from them a proportionally 
greater amount of vapor ; this vapor, as we have seen, 
in due time, returns in showers, refreshing and beauti- 



126 THE SECOND DAY. 

fying all nature. So in the world of Christian devo- 
tion. Under the benignant beams of the Sun of Eight- 
eousness, the exhalations of prayer and praise are drawn 
upwards to the heavenly throne; more abundantly, 
as in nature, from those more completely under his 
gracious influences; and these exhalations of the heart, 
through a Saviour's mediation, are made to return in 
richer showers, even showers of grace, to refresh and 
strengthen those souls to bring forth fruit unto everlast- 
ing life. Again : As the earth, without showers, would 
soon become parched and barren and dead ; so, without 
the rain and dew of Divine grace, the moral earth would 
become as iron, and its heavens as brass ; every plant 
of holiness, every flower of piety, and every blade of 
virtue, would soon droop and die. Nor does the parallel 
end here : as in the physical world, the greater the 
quantity of vapors drawn up from sea and land, the 
greater will be the amount of rain that sooner or later 
will come down on plain and mountain; so in the 
spiritual, the more abundant the exhalations of prayer 
and supplication from the children of men, the more 
copious the showers of grace that will be poured out in 
return. Let prayer, therefore, daily ascend as the 
vapors from the ends of the earth, and rise as clouds of 
incense before the throne, and this wilderness shall yet 
blossom as the rose, flourish as the garden of the Lord, 
and bloom with all the beauties of an unblighted 
paradise. 



THE SECOND DAY. 127 

LIGHTNING AND THUNDER. 

He made a way for the lightning of thunder. 

Another element of great and mysterious interest per- 
taining to the firmament is electricity, whose presence 
and effects are most commonly witnessed in thunder- 
storms. This subtle principle appears to be diffused 
through all nature ; the firm earth, the rolling ocean, the 
yielding atmosphere, the bodies of living animals, and 
the substance of growing plants, alike confess its pres- 
ence. It is, beyond all doubt, one of the most important 
of the forces of creation. Its power is all but omnipo- 
tent. In an instant, it rifts the oak into splinters, sets 
floating ships in a blaze, and explodes the massive castle 
into fragments. Even rocks have been scathed and 
vitrified, and the hardest metals reduced to fluids, by 
this terrible element in its furious march. 

The nature of electricity is involved in much dark- 
ness. By some philosophers it is believed to be a form 
of heat. It is supposed to be of two kinds, or, at least, 
to exist in two different conditions, termed positive and 
negative. Positive and negative electricities always ex- 
hibit a powerful disposition to unite ; but two bodies, 
charged with the same kind of electricity, whether 
positive or negative, repel each other. 

Electricity may be generated and collected by arti- 
ficial means; as by rubbing a revolving plate of glass 
with a piece of silk. After a manner similar to this, 



128 THE SECOND DAY. 

Nature herself is constantly carrying on the same pro- 
cess on a grand scale. The currents of air are ever 
generating electricity as they sweep or rub over the 
surface of the globe ; and the fluid thus evolved passes 
partly into the earth and partly into the atmosphere. 
When very dry, the portion passing into the air may 
accumulate in excess, in which case the firmament be- 
comes filled with thunder-clouds, from which dart 
flashes toward the earth ; or, sometimes, from one 
cloud to another ; and in this way the equilibrium is 
restored. 

The phenomenon of a thunder-storm may be ex- 
plained by a simple experiment. Let a glass globe be 
suspended by a silken cord directly over a table ; let 
this globe be charged by means of an electrical machine 
with positive electricity, and immediately this acts in- 
ductively through the air, and causes a counter-collec- 
tion of negative electricity in the table below. These 
collections, as just stated, have a strong tendency to 
unite ; if the intervening space, however, be consider- 
able, this they cannot do. But let the glass globe be 
now gently lowered so as to lessen the interval, and the 
electricities, able now to overcome the thinner partition 
of air, rush together with a spark and detonation. Now 
this spark and detonation are thunder and lightning in 
miniature, and are precisely similar to these sublime 
phenomena as witnessed in the heavens. There, a 
cloud becomes impregnated with positive electricity, 
and this will throw a neighboring cloud, like the table, 



THE SECOND DAY. 129 

into a negative state ; and the instant these two clouds 
are brought sufficiently near, there is a disruptive dis- 
charge from one to the other, attended with a startling 
blaze of light, followed by a crash of thunder, produced 
by the concussion of the air in re-uniting, after having 
been divided by the electric discharge. 

It frequently happens that a cloud of many thousands 
of acres becomes charged with positive electricity ; this, 
floating along at a low elevation, renders a corres- 
ponding extent of the earth's surface below negatively 
charged; and all within the borders of this negative 
tract find themselves almost helplessly stationed be- 
tween two highly excited masses; the air becomes 
sultry and stagnant ; the head is oppressed with dul- 
ness, and the whole frame with nameless languor. The 
very beasts become living electrometers ; the animated 
horse and the dull ox alike stand in rueful gaze, and 
the birds skim low along the ground, as if dreading a 
loftier flight. The wind comes and goes in fitful gusts, 
or lowly moans, as if bewailing the approaching con- 
flict. Stillness and gloom invest all nature. As this 
storm-cloud sails onward through the atmosphere, its 
negative electrical antagonist, like its shadow, is travel- 
ling the surface of the ground at the same pace ; be- 
tween them is kept up a contest, like that of armies 
moving in parallel lines ; ever and anon the vivid flashes 
dart forth, or the red bolts are hurled from above; the 
very ground trembles, and the whole concave reverber- 
ates with the clangor of the mighty discharges, while the 






130 THE SECOND DAY. 

copious shower descends, as in an unbroken sheet, to 
lave the face of nature. 

What are commonly called thunder-clouds are not 
the only depositories of electricity in the atmosphere ; 
even the cool mist, which settles down upon the 
earth's surface, is frequently charged with enormous 
quantities of electricity. Experimenting upon such 
mist in the month of November, Crosse, the English 
electrician, drew from it such a rush of electric fire, that 
the eye could not endure to look at it ; and to have 
touched the conductor through which it gushed would 
have been instant death ! For upwards of five hours, 
this splendid, but appalling spectacle, continued without 
intermission. In every acre of that fog, he tells us, 
there was enough of accumulated electricity to have 
destroyed every living thing within that acre. How 
startling to think, that in travelling through a raw 
autumn mist, we may be sheeted in fire, and passing 
through a furnace more deadly than that of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, and yet escape without a hair of our head 
being singed ! 

It is pleasing to contemplate what provisions the 
Creator has made to prevent danger and destruction 
from an undue accumulation of electricity in the at- 
mosphere. He has so constituted every tree, every 
bush, and every blade of grass, as to be a conductor of 
electricity from the atmosphere into the earth. "A leaf 
pointed with nature's exquisite workmanship is three 
times as effectual as the finest needle; and a single living 



THE SECOND DAY. 131 

twig far more efficient than the metallic points of the 
best constructed rod. What, then, must be the agency of 
an extended forest in disarming the storm of its terrors ? 
The raindrops and the snow-flakes, also, have been made 
good conductors ; so that during the storms, a bridge for 
the lightning is thrown across from the clouds to the 
earth. Hence we see with what care Providence has 
guarded us from this destructive agent. It is only under 
unusual circumstances, when electricity is developed 
more rapidly than it can be dissipated through these 
numberless channels, that a violent discharge takes 
place ; and if, then, it tears, burns or kills, it also re- 
veals the merciful Hand which constantly spares." — 
CooJcs Religion and Chemistry. 

We have used the term undue accumulation of elec- 
tricity — this is not strictly correct, for even this excess 
is a specific arrangement, and is designed to effect im- 
portant results. It is when the volleys of the bursting 
cloud cleave the firmament, and the thunders of the 
discharge are pealing their dreadful notes above our 
heads, that the chemical combinations of the noxious 
exhalations arising from decaying animal and vegetable 
substances, are effected, and the elements, fitted for the 
purposes of animal health and vegetable growth, are 
formed and brought to the ground in the heavy rains 
which usually attend these storms. It is by these con- 
vulsions that the atmosphere regains its balance, and 
renews its salubrity. Thus Science unites with Revela- 
tion in teaching us, that our Father in heaven is no less 



132 THE SECOND DAY. 

loving and kind in launching forth the " winged bolt," 
than in sending down the gentle sunbeam. 

REFLECTIONS. 

God is not nature, and nature is not God ; yet what- 
ever of wisdom or wonder, of goodness or excellence, 
nature displays, existed in the Divine mind from eter- 
nity- and the end of every created thing is to be, so far, 
a manifestation of the Creator's perfections. And no 
production of his hand, perhaps, speaks to us more 
plainly and impressively of these than the electric 
element. The wonders wrought by its power are truly 
marvellous, and many of its magic influences have, thus 
far, baffled every attempt to explain or understand 
them. The dewdrop that glistens on the flower, or 
even the tear that trembles on the eyelid, holds locked 
in its transparent cell a sufficient amount of this elec- 
tric fire to create a storm that shall be felt and heard 
over a kingdom. It exercises power and dominion 
throughout nature. It pervades the bodies and affects 
the lives of all animated beings, and is concerned in the 
growth and maturity of every vegetable production. 
Its currents trace the circumference of the globe, and 1 
its vibrations reach to the depths of its centre. The 
precious metals shut up in the rifted chasm, and the 
glittering gems hidden in the darkness of the solid rock, 
are indebted for their value and brilliancy to its potent 
influence. And while this element moves thus on its 
appointed errands with the velocity of thought, and has 



THE SECOND DAY. 133 

power to rend the heavens, and shake the mountains, 
yet we find it so safely curbed and restrained, that for 
the most part, it floats around our path innocuous as 
the gentlest zephyr. Who that intelligently contem- 
plates all this, but must also admire and adore its 
Divine Author ! 

Awe and reverence are not the only lessons taught 
us by this mysterious element. Let us again trace it 
in one of its more familiar operations. The day opens 
bright and warm ; its earlier hours pass full of promise. 
But presently its sky begins to be invaded by unlooked- 
for clouds ; these roll up, expand, and soon overspread 
the whole heaven ; the sun is shut out ; omnious gloom 
pervades the expanse. And now startling flashes 
gleam through the massy clouds, or fiercely dart down 
to the earth. Eain and hail descend commingled; and 
fitful winds unite with thunder to add to the terror of 
the scene. For a time disaster and destruction seem to 
threaten all. We wait in dread suspense. At length 
the storm has spent its force, and dies away. Look 
now abroad, and survey the consequences. Lo ! what 
a happy transfiguration of all nature ! The sultry and 
oppressive atmosphere is gone. The sun shines forth 
with softened splendor. The air has recovered its 
healthful spring and life. The foliage glistens with 
golden drops, and the landscape,, refreshed by the co- 
pious rain, laughs in every part at those dread storm- 
clouds now fading on the distant horizon. Nature lifts 
her drooping head, and, shaking the moisture from her 



134 THE SECOND DAY. 

foliage tresses, smiles as beauty does through its bridal 
tears, to see her fair world blessed and renovated by the 
storm. So, reader, it is also with the storms of life. 
These, in like manner, however they may startle or dis- 
may, are sent in mercy — sent to clear your moral at- 
mosphere, and to restore health to your soul. And the 
tempest which you think you see even now gathering 
on your horizon, and which so much alarms you, may 
be charged by the Sovereign Euler of all to bear for you 
under its dark wings a benefit, a blessing, that you 
know not of. He that sitteth above the heavens often 
extracts from the blackest clouds the most refreshing 
drops of mercy, and from the furious tempest evolves 
the happiest results. 

SNOW AND HAIL. 

He giveth snow like wool, and casteth forth his ice like morsels. 

Snow and hail, like the rain, come down to us from 
the great laboratory of the firmament. Snow consists 
of vapors frozen while the particles are small ; in other 
words, it is crystallized water. When a flake is examined 
through a magnifying glass, the whole of it appears 
composed of fine, shining spicula, diverging like rays 
from the centre. As the flakes descend through the 
atmosphere, they are continually joined by more of 
these radiated spicula, and thus increase in bulk, like 
the drops of rain. They are of various forms, all very 
beautiful after their kind. They differ in size from 




SNOW ELAKES. 



THE SECOND DAY. 135 

one-third to one-thirtieth of an inch in diameter. Snow 
occurs in all regions of the globe at a certain height 
above the level of the sea ; but it falls more abun- 
dantly on plains as we proceed from the equator toward 
the poles. 

Hail is a more compact mass of frozen water. These 
congealed drops assume various figures — round, pyra- 
midal, flat, angular, and sometimes stellated with six 
radii, like a small crystal of snow. When hailstones 
are broken open, they are sometimes found within to 
be of a spungy structure ; sometimes the interior pre- 
sents a very beautiful radiated appearance ; and, not 
unfrequently, exhibit regular and very remarkable 
concentric plates. They vary in size from that of a 
grain of mustard to masses an inch, and sometimes two 
inches, in diameter. 

These frozen meteors, like everything else, have their 
use in the economy of nature. Snow is a beneficent 
provision made for the benefit of the higher latitudes 
of the earth, where the winters are severe. Extreme 
cold being destructive to vegetation, God appointed 
that the vapors which, in summer, unite their particles 
and fall in rain to refresh and nourish all the vegetable 
tribes, should, in winter, descend like soft wool to cover 
and protect them from injury from the extreme cold. 
Though cold in itself, yet by settling into a compact 
layer, it prevents the internal heat of the earth from 
escaping. Careful observations have shown that the 
lower surface of the snow seldom falls much below 32° 



136 THE SECOND DAY. 

Fahr., although the temperature of the air outside may 
be many degrees below the freezing point. It thus 
forms a safe covering to the more tender herbs, till the 
rigor of winter gives place to the genial influence of 
spring. But for this provision many regions of the 
earth that are now peopled would be uninhabitable, as 
nearly all vegetation would be utterly destroyed by the 
intensity of the winter's cold. To all this we may add 
the fact, that the nitrous particles contained in snow 
are said to be of a fertilizing quality, and to benefit 
vegetation. 

REFLECTIONS. 

From the least to the greatest, the works of God are 
worthy of himself. The snow-flakes that fall upon our 
path speak their Maker to be a Being of infinite perfec- 
tions. See yonder fleecy cloud approaching, extending 
for many miles in every direction, and showering upon 
the land its downy flakes in unnumbered millions : 
every one of those flakes, countless as they are, has 
been formed after its proper model ; each particle has 
its precise place and position, and every point its 
proper acuteness and direction. These beautiful little 
snow stars present us with a variety of forms, while 
every one is of a figure and symmetry perfectly geometri- 
cal. Some have three sides and angles, some six, 
some eight, and some more : some are like sparkling 
crosses, and some like the leaves of open flowers ; some 
appear like single stars, others like a cluster of stars 
arranged in the most beautiful order. Each flake is 



THE SECOND DAY. 137 

formed with nothing less than art and skill Divine. 
Although all may be destroyed by half an hour's rain 
or sunshine, yet not one has been neglected, not one 
has been slighted or imperfectly formed. Every one of 
the myriad myriads that cover the earth in winter has 
been fashioned with as much correctness and beauty as 
if expressly designed for examination : and every one 
attests the presence and agency of the Divine Being in 
its formation. 

To the enlightened and devout mind, every season 
has its charms. Even mid-winter has its peculiar in- 
terests to the Christian student. How beautiful is the 
face of nature when the morning sun rises clear upon a 
country embosomed in snow ! How delightful to be- 
hold the hills and the valleys mantled in pure white, 
and reflecting the sun-beams, in varied tints, from a 
thousand points. How beauteous the grove, and each 
particular tree robed in fleecy whiteness, and sparkling 
beneath the early sun ; and the icy bosom of the lake 
and the stream, like mirrors, receiving and reflecting 
the images of the rocks and the hills, and of the flying 
clouds and bending trees ! What a delightful combi- 
nation of objects ! What a splendid and dazzling array 
does the earth now present ! Lord, truly " the 
rolling year is full of thee !" 



138 THE SECOND DAY. 

THE AIR AS A MEDIUM. 

And God saw the firmament that it ivas good. 

Besides the wonderful properties and functions at 
which we have looked, the atmosphere is the appointed 
medium of many other inestimable benefits to the world 
in which we live, which we can but barely mention. 

While the sun is the great source of light, yet the 
co-operation of the atmosphere to diffuse that light is 
essential to the proper illumination of the earth. To 
the atmosphere we are to ascribe the sweet glories of 
the day, the delicious blue of the heavens, and the soft 
and soothing shades of the landscape. Without it the 
sky would be black as ebony, and out of it the sun 
would gleam like a red-hot ball ; and his beams, like a 
ray passing through an aperture into a dark room, 
would reveal only the objects on which they fell, or 
those from which they were directly reflected. Without 
atmosphere there would be no twilight, morning or 
evening ; the sun, at the commencement of day, would, 
at one bound, burst from the bosom of night in all its 
unbearable brilliancy ; and, at the close of day, would 
suddenly plunge out of view, and leave us at once in 
utter darkness. To the atmosphere we owe all the 
glories of the setting sun, when heaven puts on her 
most gorgeous robes, and for all the loveliness of the 
softening twilight that succeeds. 

By means of the atmosphere birds wing their way 



T3E SECOND DAY. 139 

through space, and insects flit from flower to flower. 
Without it the busy bee could never gather and lay up 
her nectar store, or the morning lark ascend on high to 
pour forth her early song. Without it even the eagle 
and the condor would flap their wings in vain ; flight 
would be impossible. 

The atmosphere is also the vehicle of smell, by which 
we are warned of what is unwholesome or offensive, 
and attracted to what is desirable and pleasing. With- 
out it we should never be regaled with the perfume 
of incense, or the sweet odors of flowers from garden or 
field. 

The atmosphere is likewise the medium of sound. 
In its absence eternal silence must have reigned; con- 
versation could have been carried on by signs only, 
while music would have remained an impossibility — 
that is, supposing that, under such circumstances, men 
could have existed to converse or sing. The vibrations 
of the air, like speedy messengers, are what convey our 
thoughts to others, and those of others to us. The air 
is the channel through which man holds communion 
with his fellows, and receives the indescribable pleasures 
that spring from the words of friendship, the voice of 
love, and all the soothing charms of melody. 

KEFLECTKMS. 

There is a theology in nature as well as in the Bible, 
and these two, rightly interpreted, agree in one. There 
is a deep and broad theology in the constitution of the 



140 THE SECOND DAY. 

Firmament, which we have now contemplated, that, in 
harmony with the Scripture, ascribes to the Creator the 
perfection of wisdom, power and goodness. The atmos- 
phere constitutes a machinery which, in all its compli- 
cated and admirable adjustments, offers the most 
striking displays and convincing proofs of this. This 
vast and wonderful appendage of our globe has been 
made expressly to meet the nature and wants of the 
living creatures and growing vegetation that occupy its 
surface ; and all these plants and animals have been 
created with distinct reference to the properties of the 
atmosphere. Throughout design and mutual adapta- 
tion are most manifest. 

The atmosphere has been composed of tliose elements, 
and composed of them in just the proportions that are 
essential to the health and nurture of all living crea- 
tures. 

The atmosphere has been made for lungs ; and lungs 
have been made for the atmosphere, being elaborately 
constructed for its alternate admission and expulsion. 
And how beautiful that adjustment by which animals 
breathe of the oxygen of the air, and set carbonic acid 
free for the use of plants, while plants absorb carbonic 
acid, and set oxygen free for the benefit of animals ! 

The atmosphere and the ear have also been formed 
one for the other. This organ is so constructed that its 
use depends entirely upon the elastic properties of 
the air. 

In like manner the atmosphere and the organs of 



THE SECOND DAY. 141 

speech have been formed in mutual adaptation. The 
whole mouth, the larynx, the tongue, the lips, have 
been made with inimitable skill to form air into words. 

Equally evident is the mutual adaptation of the at- 
mosphere and the organs of smell, as the latter can effect 
their function only in connection with the former. 

In one word, all the parts of all animal organizations, 
even to the very pores of the skin, have been contrived 
with minute nicety in adaptation to the constituent 
elements and elastic properties of the atmosphere. 

Add to all the foregoing, its admirable qualities for 
disseminating heat, evaporating moisture, equalizing 
climate, producing winds, forming clouds, and diffusing 
light — and we behold in the Firmament of heaven a 
concourse of vast contrivances, that constitute A sublime 
anthem to the Creator's praise ! 

" The contemplation of the atmosphere," says Whe- 
well, " as a machine which answers all these purposes, 
is well suited to impress upon us the strongest convic- 
tion of the most refined, far-seeing, and far-ruling con- 
trivance. It seems impossible to suppose that these 
various properties were so bestowed and so combined 
any otherwise than by a beneficent and intelligent 
Being, able and willing to diffuse organization, life, 
health, and enjoyment through all parts of the visible 
world ; possessing a fertility of means which no multi- 
plicity of objects could exhaust, and a discrimination 
of consequences which no complication of conditions 
could embarrass." — Bridgewater Treatise, p. 74. 



142 THE SECOND DAY. 

The various elements composing the atmosphere, its 
gases, and vapors, and electricity, are, indeed, as if in- 
stinct with life and reason. Animated by the solar 
beams, they are everywhere in busy and unerring ac- 
tivity — sometimes acting singly, sometimes in combi- 
nation, but always playing into each other's hands 
with a certainty and perfection which might almost be 
called intelligence, and which nothing short of Infinite 
Wisdom could have devised. Thus, by their manifold 
and beneficial operations, The heavens declare the glory 
of God, and the firmament showetli his handi-worh. 

"There's not a breeze 
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes 
The setting sun's effulgence ; not a strain 
From all the tenants of the warbling shade 
Ascends, but whence the heart may find 
Fresh motives to devotion." 



§fa MM iag. 



TJie Waters are collected, the Dry Land appears, and Vegetation is produced. 



THE THIRD DAY. 

Genesis 1 : 9-13. — And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be 
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it 
was so. And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering to- 
gether of the waters called he Seas : and God saw that it was good. 
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, 
upon the earth : and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and 
herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed 
was in itself, after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And the 
evening and the morning were the third day. 

E have traced the earth through two stages of the 
creative process, and with the above narration 
\p|^? we enter upon the third. A great advance was 
made the two preceding days ; we have now a 
purer air, a clearer sky, and a good degree of light ; but 
water still covers all, as at the first ; one vast and shore- 
less ocean envelops the globe. And the first work of 
this day is to gather the waters together, and make a 
due proportion of dry land appear. 

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven he 
gathered together unto one 'place, and let the dry land 
appear. No sooner had this command been uttered 
than it was obeyed ; for it is immediately added, And it 
was so. In this short verse we have recorded one of 
the most stupendous physical events that ever occurred 

10 145 




146 THE THIRD DAY. 

on the face of our globe. No picture, no description of 
the occurrence is offered. We have simply set before 
us the mighty fact in its naked grandeur. A scene of 
wonders is here passed over in silence, being, perhaps, 
designedly left for man's future investigation and 
study. 

The command here issued to the waters being om- 
nific and immediately effective, must have been fol- 
lowed by vast and fearful convulsions of the earth's 
crust. The portions designed for the future continents 
were upheaved, while far more extensive portions were 
depressed, to form the hollow deeps, into which the 
water should flow and gather, to constitute the future 
oceans. In this way, we may suppose, did the dry land 
appear. The scene which the surface of our planet at 
this eventful hour presented, must have been one of 
supreme and terrific grandeur. We know of no lan- 
guage so appropriate to set forth this display of Divine 
power, as the words of the inspired Psalmist, Ci Lord 
my God, thou art very great ; thou art clothed with 
honor and majesty. Thou coveredst the earth with the 
deep as with a garment ; the waters stood above the 
mountains. At thy rebuke they fled ; at the voice of 
thy thunder they hasted away to the place thou hadst 
founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they 
may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover 
the earth." 

The land, as elevated from the depths of the uni- 
versal ocean, was, of course, barren and bare. The 



THE THIRD DAY. 147 

hollowed valleys, the oozy plains, and the trickling 
mountain sides, were alike destitute of all vegetation ; 
no trees, no bushes, no grass, as yet, adorned the wet 
and slimy ground. But this condition of things was to 
be of short duration ; on the self-same day the word went 
forth that stocked the earth with all sorts of trees, and 
shrubs, and herbs, and grasses, which were endowed 
with power to reproduce and spread their kind till the 
earth was covered, and to perpetuate their respective 
species to the end of time. And the earth brought forth 
grass, and herb yielding seed after his hind ; and the 
tree yielding fruity whose seed was in itself after his 
hind. 

And God saw that it was good; saw that the works 
of this day were all wise in their arrangements, perfect 
in their execution, and well-fitted for their respective 
ends. 

The history of this day sets before us an extensive 
field of study. To notice all its wonderful works in 
detail is not practicable in this work. We must, there- 
fore, confine ourselves to the grand results accomplished, 
and illustrate the wisdom, power and goodness of the 
Creator, as displayed in the sea, the dry land, the 
mountains and volcanoes, the rivers, and the vegetation 
of the earth. 



148 THE THIRD DAY. 

THE SEA. 
The gathering together of the waters called He Seas. 

When the commotions produced by the first fiat of 
this day had subsided, and tranquillity in the waters 
had been restored, it appeared that the ancient ocean 
still retained his dominion over full three-fourths of the 
earth's surface, having yielded only one-quarter of his 
former empire to constitute the dry land. Thus of the 
197 millions of square miles embraced in the area of the 
whole globe, 145 millions remained covered with water, 
while 52 millions comprehended the whole of the dry 
land. 

A superficial and hasty view of this arrangement has 
led some to entertain the idea, that no proper or wise 
proportion between the extent of land and that of water 
was observed ; and presumptuously to assert that had 
the Creator adopted a different division, or even re- 
versed the present proportions, so that three-fourths 
should be land and one-fourth water, it would have been 
a better arrangement, and one more to the advantage 
of the human race. But these are the conclusions of 
ignorance. Who can undertake to tell us what all the 
consequences would be if any such change should take 
place : if, for example, the Pacific were converted into 
a continent, or Africa into an ocean ? When man as- 
sumes to pronounce judgment in such a matter as this, 
he evidently adventures into depths which the scanty 



THE THIRD DAY. 149 

line of his reason is utterly inadequate to fathom. If 
the ocean were reduced to one-half its present extent, 
the amount of evaporation, and of rain, would be dimin- 
ished in the same proportion ; similar disastrous changes 
would take place in all the streams and rivers; the 
humidity and temperature of the atmosphere, together 
with the character of the seasons over the whole earth, 
would also undergo changes of a most calamitous na- 
ture. Such strictures, then, on the Divine plan savor 
equally of ignorance and impiety. He who weighed 
the mountains in scales, and measured the waters in 
the hollow of his hand, we may be assured, hath fixed 
the bounds of the sea, and determined the extent of the 
land, with wisdom as infallible as that which decided 
the ratio of the gases in the atmosphere, or adjusted the 
lenses of the eye for the perception of light. Laplace, 
after profound calculations, reached the conclusion that 
the quantity of water in the ocean, and its specific 
gravity, as compared with that of the globe, afford the 
most marked and beautiful instance of designing wis- 
dom and goodness in the creation of our world. 

The bottom of the sea, like the surface of the land, 
abounds in the inequalities of valleys, plains and hills. 
In those parts where its waters are tranquil, trans- 
parent, and not too deep, one may lean over the side 
of his boat, and see that he is gliding sometimes over 
meadows carpeted with green ; sometimes across dales 
adorned with what seem like waving vines and shrubs 
of every form and shade ; sometimes over mountain- 



150 THE THIRD DAY. 

tops, whose sides are now gentle slopes or precipitous 
rocks, and now adorned with groves of living coral, 
branching in fantastic imitations of the shrubs and trees 
of the land; the whole presenting just such a view as 
an aeronaut would observe beneath him as he swept 
lowly in his balloon over a district of country. The 
islands are but the tops of mountains and hills that are 
tall enough to thrust their heads above water. The depth 
of the ocean, therefore, is various. Along the celebrated 
Telegraph Plateau, extending from Ireland to New- 
foundland, the depth ranges from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. 
The greatest depth yet discovered is 25,000 feet, or 
nearly five miles ; this is in the North Atlantic. The 
Pacific is supposed to be deeper. 

An important and interesting property of the sea is 
its saltness. Although the ocean is one vast briny deep, 
ever agitated by wind and tide, yet it is not equally 
salty in all its parts. In general, its waters are im- 
pregnated with from three to four per cent, of salt. In 
inland seas, like the Mediterranean and the Caspian, 
where evaporation is very active, it is from eight to 
twelve per cent. On the other hand the proportion is 
smallest in the polar seas, where evaporation is feeble, 
and where great quantities of fresh water from the 
melting ice and snow flow in. How and when did the 
sea receive its saltness, are questions of interest. Some 
have supposed that it has derived its saline quality 
from the vast stores of salt laid up among the strata of 
the earth along its bottom ; but these beds of salt found 



THE THIRD DAY. 151 

in the earth exhibit unmistakable evidence that they 
themselves have been deposited from the waters of the 
sea. The most reasonable supposition is, that it was 
made salt by the Creator in the morning of time; 
indeed, salt seems to be an essential element in the 
constitution of the ocean from the beginning, as it acts 
an important part (as we shall soon see,) in regulating 
its evaporation, in producing its currents, in preserving 
it from corruption, and in modifying the climates even 
of the interior of continents. The entire amount of 
salt held in solution in the ocean is very great ; from a 
safe and moderate calculation it has been estimated, 
that it would cover to the thickness of one mile an 
area of seven millions of square miles ! 




THEORY OE THE TIDES. 
S ■ - 




Among the most noticeable and important move- 
ments to which the waters of the ocean are subject, are 



152 THE THIRD DAY. 

the Tides. These are regular and periodical oscilla- 
tions, occasioned principally by the attraction of the 
moon, though the sun also has an influence in their 
formation ; the influence of the moon being three times 
that of the sun. Twice every twenty-four hours the 
waters of the ocean rise and flow in upon the shores, 
and twice within the same period they retire. The 
tides are greatest at the new and full moon, when the 
attractions of the sun and moon are exerted in the 
same line; and least at the quadratures, when the 
influence of the sun goes to depress the waters at the 
very parts where that of the moon is exerted to raise 
them. Under these influences of the sun and moon, a 
broad wave is formed, which rushes round the globe ; 
or rather seems to rush, for the water has no actual 
progressive motion, but simply heaves upward in 
succession, like the waves passing over a field of stand- 
ing wheat. The height of the tidal billow varies in 
different places, according to the depth of the sea, and 
the conformation of surrounding lands. In the open 
ocean it seldom rises above two or three feet. In 
channels that open fairly to receive the flood, but 
whose shores contract as it advances, it mounts higher 
and higher. At St. Maloes it exceeds fifty feet; and 
in the Bay of Fundy a wave of one hundred feet high 
sweeps in upon the shore. The rate at which the 
tidal wave travels is affected by similar causes ; across 
the southern ocean it advances at the rate of nearly a 
thousand miles an hour ; while in the German sea its 



THE THIRD DAY. 153 

progress is hardly fifty miles an hour. The tides are 
to many places of great commercial importance, giving 
to inland towns the advantages of a harbor. But for 
the tides, London would never have been what it is, 
the foremost commercial city in the world. — What a 
marvellous and beneficial arrangement have we here ! 
The moon, an orb revolving at the distance of two 
hundred and forty thousand miles, so constituted as to 
exert a mighty and unremitting power for our good ; 
lifting the waters of our planet in magnificent and 
periodical waves, to fill and empty our harbors, to w r ash 
our beaches with majestic rollers, and to maintain a 
regular pulse in the great ocean heart, by which its 
life and purity are perpetuated. 

Besides the tides, there are in the ocean other estab- 
lished and uniform movements. Here, as in the 
atmosphere, solar influence is the moving power. In 
the exhalations that arise under this influence from 
the surface of the sea, not a particle of the salt it con- 
tains ascends. Hence in the intertropical regions, the 
great amount of evaporation which takes place leaves 
behind it a great amount of salt, which renders the 
waters saltier, and, consequently, heavier. In the polar 
region, on the contrary, the slowness of evaporation, 
together with melting snows and glaciers, contributes 
to keep the ocean waters fresh and light. Hence 
results a perpetual circulation in the sea — the salt and 
heavy waters of the equatorial region sink and flow 
along the bottom toward the poles to displace their 



154 THE THIRD DAY. 

lighter and fresher waters, while these in consequence 
are forced into a contrary current along the surface 
toward the equator, to fill up the vacancy which the 
dense water leaves behind. In this way there is main- 
tained in the great oceans of the globe a perpetual 
circulation from the equator to the poles, and from the 
poles to the equator ; and thus every drop of the ocean, 
down to its dark unfathomed caves, is kept in constant 
motion and exchange. 

The sea has its Streams as well as its general cur- 
rents. Nothing can be more striking than the fact, 
that the oceans of our globe are traversed by rivers 
that flow as definitely and as regularly as the Danube 
or the Nile. Their channels are established, and for 
thousands of miles they pursue their course along beds 
and between banks of other and different water, as 
fixed as if built of granite rock. And if the ship- 
wrecked mariner commits his raft to one of these, it 
will conduct him along its known and established route, 
as certainly as that the Mississippi would carry him 
down past New Orleans. 

The most remarkable of these ocean rivers is the 
famous Gulf Stream, so named from the fact that it 
was long supposed to originate in the Gulf of Mexico ; 
it receives its first impulse, according to Humboldt, 
near the southern extremity of Africa. From the 
Gulf of Mexico this stream flows into the Atlantic 
between Florida and Cuba, whence it runs northward 
nearly parallel to the American coast, until it reaches 



THE THIRD DAY. 155 

Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, where it makes a 
great bend, and throws one branch downwards toward 
the Azores, while the other spreads and flows north- 
ward toward the British Islands, and thence to the 
Polar sea. Of this magnificent river, the banks and 
bottom are of cold water, and its stream is of warm 
water; it is seventy miles wide, three thousand feet 
deep, and is equal in volume to more than a thousand 
Mississippis. In the Gulf of Florida its speed is about 
eighty miles a day, but by the time it reaches the 
Azores it has been reduced to ten miles. Its color, as 
far as the coasts of the Carolinas, is that of Indigo-blue; 
and its banks or edges are so well defined that the 
mariner knows the moment his prow dips into its 
flood; and often, says Maury, one-half of the vessel 
may be perceived floating in the Gulf Stream water, 
while the other half is in the common water of the sea. 
The middle of this stream is found to be considerably 
higher than its edges, so that it actually constitutes a 
kind of serpentine ridge upon the surface of the ocean : 
and what is more remarkable still, it flows up-hill ; in 
one part of its course, the gradient of its bed is not less 
than five or six feet in the mile. But what is most 
noticeable of all is its temperature and influence on 
climate. This is very marked. In the early history 
of the United States, vessels in approaching the coast 
in winter, were beset by snow storms and gales, that 
not unfrequently baffled the strength and skill of the 
seaman. A ship often became a mass of ice, and her 



156 THE THIRD DAY. 

crew frosted and helpless; but if she succeeded in 
reaching the Gulf Stream, all was well ; on approach- 
ing its edge she passed from a wintry sea into one of 
summer heat. The ice disappeared from the ship, and 
" the sailors bathed their stiffened limbs in the tepid 
waters of the stream." It leaves the Gulf of Mexico 
at a temperature of 86°, and after traversing 10° of 
latitude, it has lost only 2° of its heat ; and after run- 
ning nearly three thousand miles northward, it still 
preserves, in winter, the heat of summer. Continuing 
on its way, it presently "overflows its liquid banks, 
and spreads itself for thousands of square leagues over 
the cold waters around, covering the ocean with a 
mantle of warmth." And the genial west winds take 
this up, and in the most benignant manner, disperse it 
over all the west coast of Europe, delightfully soften- 
ing and ameliorating its climate. 

It is by this means and in this way that the British 
Islands are clothed with evergreen robes, and their 
inhabitants advanced to the highest development of 
mind and body ; while in the same latitude, Labrador 
is bound in ice, its vegetation sparse and stinted, and 
its inhabitants low-typed, and not likely soon, if ever, 
to act any high part in the history of the race. How 
deeply indebted, therefore, is the favored Briton for his 
proud pre-eminence to this ocean stream. Divert its 
flow from his shores, and his glory is departed. "If a 
change were to take place in the configuration of the 
surface of the globe," says Mr. Hopkins in his address 



THE THIRD DAY. I57 

to the British Association, " so as to admit the passage 
of this current directly into the Pacific, across the 
existing Isthmus of Panama, or along the base of the 
Kocky Mountains, into the North sea — a change indefi- 
nitely small in comparison to those which have hereto- 
fore taken place — our mountains, which now present 
to us the ever-varying beauties of successive seasons, 
would become the unvarying abodes of the glacier, and 
regions of the snow storm ; the cultivation of our soil 
could be no longer maintained, and civilization itself 
must retreat before the invasion of such physical bar- 
barism." Could anything then, be more palpable than 
the advantages of such a glowing stream ? Or, could 
"benevolent design be more conspicuously inscribed upon 
any work of this lower creation ? 

Scarcely less remarkable is another stream that 
flows partly in close proximity to the Gulf Stream, but 
in the opposite direction, and which is thus graphically 
described by Dr. Child : " Side by side with this warm 
northward-moving flood (the Gulf Stream) there is a 
great polar stream bearing down in an opposite direc- 
tion, which appears to be more especially its compensa- 
tory current. It rises in the distant recesses of Baffin's 
Bay and the Greenland sea, and then, studded with 
icebergs, sweeps along the coast of Labrador, encircling 
the island of Newfoundland in its chill embrace. To 
the south of the Bank it encounters the Gulf Stream 
running northeastward ; — the paths of the two giants 
cross each other, and they struggle for the right of 



158 THE THIRD DAT. 

way. Their hostile waters refuse to mingle, and each 
continues to retain its color and its temperature. But, 
though neither is vanquished, each leaves its mark 
upon the other. From the force of the shock, the Gulf 
Stream, for a moment, falters in its course, and is 
deflected towards the south ; while the Polar current, 
unable to break through the concentrated mass by 
which it is opposed, dives under the bed of the mighty 
stream and hastens on toward the tropics; — and by 
soundings, it can be recognized even among the West 
India Islands, with the cold label of its origin still 
attached to it." 

Streams of a like character with those now described 
are found in other parts of the ocean. In the Pacific 
there is a stream, like that of the Gulf of Mexico, 
which breathes the most genial influence upon Oregon 
and British Columbia, giving those regions a climate in 
all respects very similar to that of England and 
Ireland. On the other side, Humbolt's Stream, pro- 
ceeding from the Antarctic Ocean, conveys its cooling 
waters to the shores of Chili and Peru, and even as far 
as the Gallipagos. 

Such is an outline of the Tides, Currents, and 
Streams, which the All-wise Creator saw necessary to 
establish in the ocean. Several results of a most 
important nature were to be accomplished through this 
arrangement. By this perpetual circulation of all the 
waters of the Deep, its purity and its life are preserved. 
And by means of these currents and streams from and 



THE THIRD DAY. 159 

toward the equator, the heated waters of the tropics 
are conveyed to relieve the rigor of the poles ; and the 
freezing waters of the poles are carried to refresh the 
regions of the tropics. By this beautiful arrangement 
the climate of the whole globe is equalized and 
improved. To all this we may add the interesting 
fact, that the streams which flow from the Polar Seas 
toward the equator carry along with them a vast 
amount of excellent fish from those colder latitudes; 
and in this way the inhabitants of the warmer regions 
are furnished with a supply far superior to those bred 
in their own heated waters. Thus these cold and 
warm streams are the great highways along which the 
inhabitants of the Deep travel from one region of the 
globe to another. 

REFLECTIONS. 

The great and wide sea ! What a sublime memo- 
rial of the power that gathered together its waters ! 
What a perpetual display of the omnipotence which 
confines its unstable mass within its appointed bounds ! 
Symbol of the Infinite ! it holds us as by a spell in 
contemplation of its vastness and grandeur, reaching 
far beyond our utmost horizon, simultaneously lashing 
so many distant shores, and encompassing all the king- 
doms of the earth. And when we view it as agitated 
into the violence and uproar of a tempest, and see its 
huge and far-reaching waves, like floating mountains, 
rushing, leaping for the shore, as if to scale and over- 



160 THE THIRD DAY. 

whelm its loftiest ramparts, yet each in its turn, as if 
suddenly awed, subsiding and retiring at the line 
decreed — we feel a sacred impulse from the magnificent 
spectacle to fall down and worship Him who said, 
" Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further ; and here 
shall thy proud waves be stayed !" 

The material globe in its outlines of land and water, 
and in its manifold and complicated arrangements, is 
a pictorial revelation of the conceptions, reasonings, 
and purposes which before lay in the Divine Mind. 
When the waters gathered themselves, it was not at 
random, but in strict conformity to his plan; and 
when their currents began to circulate, it was not the 
result of chance, but of his prescience. As He sur- 
veyed the surface of the earth at the close of the day, 
He beheld only what had been mapped in His own 
mind carried out and perfected. Hence He pro- 
nounced its arrangements all to be " very good." 

In the process of the world's creation, every step 
taken had respect to something beyond itself, whilst 
the whole had reference to man, its coming occupant. 
In adjusting the various agencies that combine to pro- 
duce the currents and streams of the ocean, the Creator 
was deciding the inheritance, and in no small measure 
also the character and history of nations yet unborn. 
How unsearchable are his counsels, and his ways past 
finding out ! As He was describing the shore curves, 
which were to bound the Gulf of Mexico on one side 
of the Atlantic, He was graduating the temperature 



THE THIRD DAY. 161 

that was to prevail in Great Britain on the other. 
Had the course of the stream issuing from that Gulf 
been directed to breathe its genial warmth on the 
coasts of Labrador, instead of the British Isles, how 
different had been the respective histories of the 
inhabitants of these two countries — how different, 
indeed, had been the history of the world ! But for 
each, the times and bounds were before appointed. 
To understand the physical arrangements of our globe 
we must elevate ourselves to contemplate its moral 
ends. " The physical world," says Guyot, " has no 
meaning except by and for the moral world." The 
two are to be studied in their mutual relations and 
dependencies; and grand, indeed, are the harmonies 
subsisting between them. 

He who poured into their decreed place the waters 
of the sea, hath power also to dry them up again. But 
will He ever do this ? The scripture more than sug- 
gests the idea. " And I saw a new heaven, and a new 
earth; for the first heaven, and the first earth were 
passed away ; and there was no more sea." This is said 
of our world when it shall have passed its final trans- 
formation, and been made the fitting abode of holiness. 
Great and marvellous are the changes through which 
our globe has already passed , but if we are to take 
these words of John, "and there was no more sea," in 
their literal meaning, and as setting forth one of the 
marked features of the renovated earth, as it appeared 

to him in vision, it would seem that a greater and 
11 



162 THE THIRD DAY. 

more wonderful change than all these yet awaits it. 
The earth without sea ! then it must be without 
streams, or springs, or clouds, or rain, or dew. Then, 
too, the whole of its present system of vegetation, 
together with all its animated tenants must pass away, 
for the sea is the vital fountain which sustains these in 
being. As organized existences are now constituted, 
dry up the sea, and our fair, green planet would become 
a desolate mass of bare, brown soil and rock and sand, 
without a living tenant, without a flowing brook, witta 
out a motion or a sound — the stillness and silence of 
death would reign throughout. If, therefore, the New 
Earth is to be constituted without a sea, how different 
it must be from every thing that we now know, or can 
even conceive. How this globe will then be decked, 
how furnished, how adorned, or what will constitute 
the chief terrestrial delights of its happy inhabitants, 
we cannot tell. But this we do know, that He who is 
infinite in wisdom and power, can introduce new ele- 
ments, effect new combinations, breathe a new atmos- 
phere, and clothe the earth with new and etherial 
beauties, such as never even bloomed in Eden; and 
thus prepare for them that love Him, what neither eye 
hath seen, nor ear heard, nor ever entered into the 
heart of man. 



THE THIRD DAY. 163 

THE DRY LAND. 

And God said, Let the dry land appear; and it was so. 

The forces employed in sinking the ocean beds ai\d 
elevating the dry land, vast and uncontrollable as they 
appear to man, yet in the hand of Omnipotence were 
so directed and governed as to work out his plan at 
every point, in the forms, elevations and positions of 
all the continents and islands. Not one of these 
circumstances was left to chance, for not one of them 
was unimportant. 

The outlines of the various portions of the dry land 
are extremely various, and at first sight appear to be 
as much the result of accident as anything well can ; 
yet the indentations of the coast lines were designed to 
have a most important bearing upon the interests of 
mankind, by furnishing special advantages for com- 
munication and commercial enterprise. The western 
coast of Europe, and the eastern coast of North 
America are among the most irregular and deeply 
indented on the globe ; and it is precisely here we find 
science, art and refinement carried to their highest 
degree; — contrasting strongly in these respects with 
the almost unbroken shores of Africa and Australia, 
where the human race appears in its most degraded 
types. " Nothing characterizes Europe better than the 
variety of its indentations, of its peninsulas, of its 
islands. Suppose for a moment, that beautiful Italy, 



164 THE THIRD DAY. 

and Greece with its entire Archipelago, were added to 
the central mass of the continent, and augmented 
Germany or Kussia by the number of square miles they 
contain; this change of form would not give us 
another Germany, but we should have an Italy and a 
Greece the less. Unite with the body of Europe all its 
islands and peninsulas into one compact mass, and in- 
stead of this continent, so rich in various elements, you 
will have a New Holland with all its uniformity."* 

Equally conspicuous is the presiding wisdom of the 
Great Architect in the elevation or altitude of the 
dry land. Had the uplifting power been a little less, 
or ceased to operate a little sooner, how widely differ- 
ent had been the aspect of our world. A depression of 
a few hundred feet below their present general eleva- 
tion, would cause a great part of Asia and of Europe 
to disappear beneath the waters of the ocean, and 
would reduce America to a few long islands. On the 
other hand, had the elevating force been greater, or 
longer in operation, so as to lift these entire continents 
a few thousand feet higher, both the climate and the 
vegetation of the whole globe would have been very 
unlike those that now prevail; Europe would have 
been left without a vineyard or a fruit-tree ; and the 
warm and fertile plains of India, now adorned with all 
the rich productions of a tropical climate, would have 
been as the cold desert Plateaus of Thibet. Or, let us 
suppose that the elevating power had raised the south- 

* Guyot's Earth and Man, p. 26. 



THE THIRD DAY. 165 

ern region of North America only a little higher, so as 
to produce a gentle declivity of the general surface 
toward the north, and thus caused the waters of the 
Mississippi and of all its numerous tributaries to flow 
and discharge into the Frozen Ocean ; — what vast and 
inestimable advantages had been lost to this continent ! 
Or, once more, suppose the long and lofty range of the 
Andes had been elevated along the eastern coast of 
South America ; this also had been followed by disas- 
trous results, for it would have hindered the trade 
winds from bearing the vapors of the ocean into the 
interior of the continent, and the plains of the Amazon 
and Paraguay, in consequence, would have been but 
deserts. From these and a multitude of similar facts, 
it is evident that the various Table-lands and mountain 
chains, which cover the surface of our globe, have been 
arranged after a predetermined plan into a regular and 
complete system of slopes and counterslopes — a system, 
the issues of which must have all been plainly foreseen 
by Him who bade the dry land appear. 

Look again at the relative positions of the different 
parts of the dry land. To this some of the fairest 
spots of the earth owe their chief advantages. " Do 
not the three Peninsulas of the south of Europe owe to 
their position their mild and soft climate, their lovely 
landscapes, their numerous relations, and their common 
life ? Is it not to their situation that the two great 
peninsulas of India are indebted for their rich nature, 
and the conspicuous part one of them, at least, has 



J 66 THE THIRD DAY. 

played in all ages ? Place them on the north of their 
continents, Italy and Greece become Scandinavia, and 
India a Kamtschatka. All Europe is indebted for its 
temperate atmosphere to its position relatively to the 
great marine and atmospheric currents, and to the 
vicinity of the burning regions of Africa. Place it at 
the east of Asia, it will be only a frozen peninsula."* 

Again : If on the morning of the third day the vast 
regions of the poles had been elevated into dry land, 
instead of being left beneath the ocean as we now find 
them, we have reason to believe that our globe long 
since would have become uninhabitable. For in that 
case, by the process of evaporation and the agency of 
the aerial currents, the whole ocean would have been 
transferred from the tropics to the poles, leaving the 
former dry, and piling the latter with mountainous 
accumulations of ice and snow. But with the existing 
arrangement such appalling results are effectually and 
happily avoided. The polar snows fall upon those 
seas, or upon their frozen surfaces, and form floating 
masses of ice, which are partly broken up and drifted 
away in the form of icebergs, and partly melted where 
they are by currents of water perpetually streaming in 
against and beneath them from warmer regions, and 
thus become restored to the general ocean. 

These, and many other similar facts, demonstrate to 
us that infinite wisdom, as well as unlimited power, were 
concerned in the elevation of the dry land. The forms, 

* Earth and Man, p. 27. 



THE THIRD DAY. 167 

the height, and the position of its several masses, 
irregular and accidental as they may appear, reveal a 
plan that had distinct and direct reference to the 
future history of the world. In tracing the coast 
lines, and in describing the surface elevations of the 
different portions of the land, the Creator decided in 
no feeble degree what the occupation and character of 
their future population would be ; — whether keepers of 
flocks and herds, or doers of business in great waters, 
or exhumers of " the chief things of the ancient moun- 
tains." Each quarter of the globe, each continent, 
doubtless, was made and meant to develop its appro- 
priate phase of human character, while the whole was 
to form the grand theatre whereon the Eternal Logos 
was to work out his wondrous and far-reaching scheme 
of mercy and salvation to a race that would become 
sinners and self-ruined. 

The surface of the land part of the globe we find 
coated over, to a greater or less depth, with a covering 
of soil. This consists of pulverized rocks, mingled with 
calcareous substances, and the decomposed remains of 
animal and vegetable organizations. This soil is less 
or more productive according to its depth, and accord- 
ing to the proportions in which these substances are 
mixed in it. This vegetative covering, with compara- 
tively limited exceptions, is spread over the surface of 
all the dry land, from the summits of the mountains 
down their gentle declivities, and over all the plains be- 
low. By whatever agencies this important envelope was 



168 THE THIRD DAY. 

formed, and thus spread out, we behold in it the 
arrangement of a wise and benevolent Mind, making a 
most ample provision for a vegetation suitable for the 
support of man and every living thing. No candid 
mind, who duly considers the nature of the substances 
composing the mass of the earth's crust, can resist the 
conclusion that the clothing of its surface with produc- 
tive soil is as much an evidence of wise and benevolent 
intention, as is the enclosing of an animal body in a 
skin covered with hair. 

Descending from the carpeted floor of our terres- 
trial habitation into the vaults of its lower story, we 
find them filled with the provisions of God's love for 
man. Its strata, like so many shelves, to unknown 
depths, are crowded with stores of all manner of use- 
ful things for his service. Here is a magazine of min- 
erals and metals proffering him the means of multi- 
plying his conveniences, extending his civilization, and 
advancing his own knowledge, refinement, and happi- 
ness. Here are beds of granite to supply him with 
building materials that will defy the force of time and 
tide ; marble of every grain and shade of color for his 
temples, palaces, or statuary ; limestone to improve his 
soil and cement his walls ; slate to cover his roofs or 
lay his floors ; gypsum, white as snow, to finish and 
adorn his apartments ; the hardened grit to grind his 
corn ; sand to make him glass ; and clay to fabricate 
his wares; chalk, basalt, porphyry, sandstone, and a 
multitude of other minerals, all convertible by in- 



THE THIRD DAY. \Q§ 

genuity and industry into various useful and import- 
ant ends. In the great cellars below we also find laid 
up ready to his hand an abundant stock of coal, where- 
with he may warm himself, and multiply the strength 
of his arms a million fold. In close connection with 
this are fountains of oil to supply his lamps. And 
here too are inexhaustible stores of salt, an article of 
prime importance to him and to the living creatures 
around him. 

Among the strata of the rocks, in their joints and 
fissures, and interlacing their solid masses, are also pro- 
vided and laid up for man, metals of different quali- 
ties, and adapted to all the various purposes of life. 
Here are to be found the precious and beautiful metals 
of gold and silver to serve him for coins, medals, and 
ornaments; mercury, antimony, arsenic, potassium, 
phosphorus, aluminium, sulphur, sodium, magnesium, 
to supply him with chemicals for his arts, and medi- 
cines for his health ; tin, copper, nickel, zinc, plumbago, 
platinum, cobalt, lead, etc., to construct him instru- 
ments, utensils, and other conveniences without num- 
ber. Above all, here are inexhaustible stores of iron, 
the most useful, and, therefore, the most valuable of 
all the metals. The uses of iron to man are not to be 
numbered or estimated. It ministers to his necessities 
and comfort, to his ease and safety, from the beginning 
of his life to its close ; it is equally serviceable to the 
arts, to agriculture, to navigation, and to war ; out of 
it are made the sword and the ploughshare, the scissors 



170 THE THIRD DAY. 

and the needle, the cable and the anchor, and ten thou- 
sand other instrumentalities in daily use on sea and 
land. 

Treasured up in her subterranean coffers, the earth 
also holds in keeping for man a great variety of pre- 
cious gems — the hard and glittering diamond, the bril- 
liant emerald, the pink and yellow topaz, the azure 
sapphire, the purple jacinth and amethyst, the beauti- 
ful beryl, the variegated agate, the girdled onyx, the 
opal of rainbow hues, the transparent crystal, the 
white and red cornelian, together with many others 
of rare beauty and great value. These gems of the 
earth, formed and colored by God's own hand, were 
made for man exclusively, for of all creatures on this 
earth he alone is endowed with faculties to appreciate 
and with taste to enjoy them. And they serve to re- 
mind us that our Father in heaven stopped not short 
in his regard for us at the point where our bare wants 
were supplied, but was pleased to add the charms of 
beauty, over and above, in order to gratify his 
children. 

But let us look more closely at the mass of mate- 
rials composing the crust of our globe. If we care- 
fully inspect and study the structure and constitution 
of its minerals and metals, we shall discover other 
striking displays of the matchless skill and perfect 
agency employed in the formation of our earthly 
habitation. Every one of the minerals composing its 
substance has its own peculiar formation, physical 




CRYSTAL FORMS. 



THE THIRD DAY. 171 

character, and chemical properties ; and when we 
come to understand these, we shall no longer regard 
them as mere shapeless masses, or simply as having 
here a pretty form, and there a beautiful tint ; but 
as objects modeled by the Divine Hand, and revealing 
the Divine Mind. We shall discover that even in 
the profound depths and dark recesses of the earth, 
where the influences necessary to sustain organization 
and life cease to act, the creative Spirit has pursued 
his stupendous task of giving form and beauty to 
every particle of matter. 

Nearly all the minerals of the globe are found to 
be made up of minute crystals, closely packed and 
firmly held together. These crystals are of great 
variety, differing not only in size, but in their angles, 
facets, and general configuration, in different substan- 
ces. But the crystal form in any one particular 
mineral is the same everywhere ; that of quartz, for 
example, whether taken from the Alps, the Andes, or 
the Himalayas, is the same, not an angle is found 
to differ. So of iron, salt, marble, etc. Hence each 
mineral may be properly said to have as much a dis- 
tinct shape of its own as each plant or animal, and 
may be as readily distinguished by the character pre- 
sented to the eye. Crystals are distinct and perfect 
individuals in the mineral kingdom. 

The uninformed may regard beds of rock, or masses 
of ore, as chance agglomerations of matter ; but these 
combinations and figures of crystallization are so far 



172 THE THIRD DAY. 

from indicating the fortuitous result of accident, that 
they are disposed according to laws the most severely 
rigid, and in proportions mathematically exact. So 
minutely and elaborately wrought are the geometrical 
patterns of crystals, that they are found to reappear 
after the most minute subdivision. Beneath the fixed 
variety of external or secondary forms which crys- 
talline bodies assume, there is an ultimate or primitive 
form retained by the smallest particles of each crystal. 
" Every crystal of carbonate of lime," says Buckland, 
" is made up of millions of particles of the same com- 
pound substances, having one invariable primary form, 
viz., that of a rhomboidal solid, which may be ob- 
tained to an indefinite extent by mechanical division." 
In the works of crystallization we behold the per- 
fect figures of geometry, as traced by the finger of 
God. " To the uninstructed eye," says Dana, " these 
cubes and prisms of nature, with their numberless 
brilliant surfaces, often appear as if they had been 
cut and polished by the lapidary; yet the skill and 
finish of the work — most perfect in microscopic crys- 
tals — have but feeble imitation in art. Not unfre- 
quently, crystals are found with one or two hundred 
distinct planes, and occasionally even a much larger 
number ; and every edge and angle has the utmost 
perfection, and the surfaces and evenness of polish 
that betrays no rude workmanship, even under the 
highest magnifying glass. Cavities are occasionally 
met with in rocks, studded on every side with crys- 



THE THIRD DAY. 173 

tals — crystal grottos in miniature — sparkling, when 
brought but to the sun, like a casket of jewels. Even 
amid the apparent confusion, there is wonderful order 
of arrangement in the crystals ; the corresponding 
planes generally face the same way, so that the 
sparkling effect appears in successive flashes over the 
surface, as every new set of facets comes in turn to 
the light. Add to this view their delicate colors — 
the rich purple of the amethyst, the soft yellow shades 
of the topaz, the deep green of the emerald— and it 
will be admitted that the powers of crystallization 
scarcely yield to vitality in the forms of beauty they 
produce." 

The marvellous excellency of the Creators work- 
manship in the formation of the earth also appears in 
the diversity of productions fashioned out of the same 
elements. While the appearance and distinguishing 
characteristics of marble, slate, porphyry, limestone, 
and basalt, are as distinct as can well be imagined, 
the real ultimate difference in their composition is 
extremely small. Few things are more unlike than 
common clay and the precious rubies, sapphires, 
beryls, garnets, and carbuncles, yet all these are but 
so many modifications of clay. Of all gems the dia- 
mond is the hardest, the most beautiful, and the most 
valued ; yet, strange to say, it is but a lump of char- 
coal in a crystallized form, and, like charcoal, can be 
made to burn, and its whole substance to disappear in 
carbonic acid gas. And thus it is throughout nature. 



174 THE THIRD DAY. 

From a few simple substances the Divine Artificer has 
produced a multitude of useful minerals and beautiful 
gems, all differing so widely that, from their appear- 
ance, we should never think of comparing them with 
their original elements, or even suspect that any 
relation subsisted between them. 

KEFLECTIONS. 

The earth is the Lord's ; but he hath filled it with 
his riches for the children of men. And who can 
review its varied and invaluable treasures, and not 
see in them the intentions of his wisdom and the be- 
nevolence of his heart toward his earthly offspring ! 
Of those enumerated in the foregoing pages, three 
especially demand our devout and grateful reflections : 

Salt. — This is an article of prime and universal 
necessity, being an element essential to healthy nour- 
ishment. And the beneficence of the Creator is clearly 
seen in its universal distribution. Not only is it ob- 
tainable from the briny waters of the ocean along all 
the coasts, but saline springs, and solid beds of it in 
the form of rock, are dispersed generally over the con- 
tinents and large islands ; so that this source of health 
and daily enjoyment is within the reach of the inhabi- 
tants of every region of the globe. 

Coal. — This is the most valuable fuel in existence. 
The help and enjoyment man derives from it cannot 
be calculated. It warms the homes and prepares the 
food of millions. It enlightens the streets and habita- 



THE THIRD DAY. 175 

tions of unnumbered cities. It aids in the manufac- 
ture of a thousand things of use and of beauty, at the 
forge and in the furnace. It generates the steam that 
weaves our cloth, grinds our corn, prints our books, 
draws our trains, and impels our fleets. In a word, it 
lends to man a power that never wearies, a power that 
may be directed to any purpose, and a power that 
scarcely knows a limit. If the mechanics of the 
United States annually consume ten millions of tons 
of coal to run their various machineries, it gives 
them for their work the aid of a force equal to that 
of an army of men numbering twice the whole popu- 
lation of the country. Of this most useful mineral 
God has laid up a bounteous store for us. The area 
of the coal fields of the world, so far as discovered, is 
estimated at two hundred and twenty thousand square 
miles ; and these fields, by the beneficent design of the 
Creator, have been widely distributed over the globe. 

And now let us devote a moment to contemplate the 
origin and history of this most valuable production. 
Far back in the pre-Adamite periods of our planet's 
history, when its climate was much warmer and more 
humid than at present, nature, at her Lord's bidding, 
roused to put forth her chief energies in the produc- 
tion of vegetation. Hence the earth everywhere be- 
came shaded with dark and tangled forests of strange 
and stupendous growths. " Wherever dry land, or 
shallow lake, or running stream appeared, from where 
Melville's Island now spreads out its icy wastes under 



176 THE THIRD DAY. 

the star of the pole, to where the arid plains of Aus- 
tralia lie solitary beneath the bright cross of the south, 
a rank and luxuriant herbage covered every foot- 
breadth of the dank and steaming soil."* Whole 
regions of these dense forests and abounding growths 
were from time to time submerged; while in other 
parts torrents of rain and sweeping floods, such as are 
now unknown, carried them, root and branch, into the 
neighboring bays. Thus the stupendous vegetation 
was accumulated age after age at the bottom of the 
sea, and there the Hand Unseen carried them through 
chemical changes, by bituminous springs and other 
agencies, and compressed them by the weight of after 
deposits into solid layers, till, in the lapse of time, 
they were converted into what now constitute our 
coal-fields. And what is equally interesting and in- 
structive, the proof that this was actually the origin 
of coal is still visible and open to our inspection. 
Speaking of the coal mines of Bohemia, Dr. Buckland 
tells us, that " the most elaborate imitations of living 
foliage bear no comparison with the beautiful profusion 
of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of 
these coal mines are overhung. The roof is covered 
as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, enriched with 
festoons of most graceful foliage, flung in wild and 
irregular profusion over every portion of its surface. 
The spectator feels himself transported, as if by en- 
chantment, into the forests of another world ; he be- 

* Testimony of Rocks, p. 160. 



THE THIRD DAY. 177 

holds trees and forms and characters now unknown upon 
the surface of the earth, presented to his senses almost 
in the vigor of their primeval life — their scaly stems 
and bending branches, with their delicate apparatus 
of foliage, are all spread forth before him, little im- 
paired by the lapse of countless ages, and bearing 
faithful records of extinct systems of vegetation which 
began and terminated in times of which these relics 
are the infallible historians." However remote the 
period at which this rank and luxuriant vegetation 
flourished, and whatever incidental or temporary pur- 
poses it might have served at the time, the Great 
Builder of the world had a future and prospective 
end, both in its production and in its marvellous pres- 
ervation. For, like a house in process of erection, 
every change wrought in its substance, and every new 
production introduced upon its surface, were so many 
steps in the earth's progressive preparation for an occu- 
pant that was yet to be created. That coal was manu- 
factured and stowed away in the mighty cellars of the 
earth till he should come. He has come. And now, 
after the lapse of unrecorded ages — now at the end of 
time — the earth yields up these her long-held stores, 
and the extraordinary productions of the most extra- 
ordinary period of its history, are made to minister to 
the comfort, improvement, and elevation of the last- 
born of creation — man. How interesting to think and 
to be thus assured that, long before we came into 

being, our Father was already caring for us, and stor- 
12 



178 THE THIRD DAY. 

ing the earth with such things as he knew we should 
need. 

Iron. — Few objects in creation bear more conspicu- 
ously the impress of beneficent design toward man than 
this. The existence of such a metal as iron is proof of 
this. Had silver and gold not been created, or were 
they to-day annihilated, the world would go on just as 
well. But what would be our condition without iron ? 
What would supply its place? Nothing in all the 
realm of minerals. Without iron, from the very pin- 
nacle of our civilization, we should go down quickly 
into barbarism, unless saved by the special interposi- 
tion of Heaven. Without iron, the earth would have 
been unfit for man and man unfit for the earth. The 
abundance provided of this metal is another evidence 
of God's prospective care for man ; what He foresaw 
to be most needful He prepared most plentifully ; iron 
ore is distributed very widely over the earth. The 
malleability of iron bears a similar testimony ; had it 
been as unyielding as flint, or brittle as antimony, it 
would have been comparatively worthless. Its hard- 
ness and its susceptibility of being hardened to any re- 
quired degree, are also qualities that plainly attest a 
foresight of the wants of coming man and a care to 
meet them. The strength of iron and its capacity for 
toelding evince the same. Its wholesomeness is another 
important quality ; to reduce iron from its native state 
to the purposes of usefulness requires long labor over 
it, and if it had been poisonous, as many of the metals 



THE THIRD DAY. 179 

are, man would perish in his attempts to avail himself 
of its advantages. The native location of iron likewise 
indicates benevolence of design in reference to man; 
the ore being generally found in the immediate neigh- 
borhood of coal to melt it, and of lime to facilitate the 
process. Now, who that duly considers the foregoing 
properties of iron, but must be struck with admiration 
at the combination of excellent qualities that meet in 
it, and be fully convinced that it was made and meant 
for the service of man ! 

God saw the end from the beginning. Out of the 
remotest depths of the past, and all along as the world 
was forming under his plastic hand, He looked forward 
to man, who was to be the heir and head of this lower 
creation. The wants, the progress, and the destiny 
of our race were held steadily in view, as it passed 
through all its wondrous changes ; so that it may be 
said, and truly, that the stupendous miracles of by- 
gone creations were conducted with a reference to our 
present comfort and improvement. From the bowels 
of the earth, then, and from the wreck of former 
worlds, we may derive materials with which to erect 
an altar of gratitude to Him who treasured up for us 
" the blessings of the deep that lieth underneath," and 
" the precious things of the everlasting hills." 



180 THE THIRD DAY. 



MOUNTAINS. 



By his strength He setteth fast the mountains, being girded with 

power. 

Of the varied features of the Dry Land, mountains 
are the most conspicuous ; their height, their masses, 
their bold outlines and varied scenery, render them 
the most attractive and the sublimest objects presented 
on the face of the globe. Like the currents in the 
atmosphere and the streams in the ocean, they consti- 
tute important agencies in the economy of the world, 
by which the Creator bestows many blessings upon its 
inhabitants. 

Mountain chains of greater or less altitude and ex- 
tent traverse every quarter of the earth. In Europe 
we have the range formed by the Pyrenees, the Alps 
and the mountains of Dalmatia, whose highest peak, 
Mount Blanc, is 16,000 feet above the level of the sea. 
In Asia we find the Uralian, Caucasian, and Altai 
chains ; but the grandest range on this continent, and 
the highest on the globe, are the gigantic Himalayas, 
which culminate in Mount Everest, which is 29,000 
feet high, and visible at the distance of 230 miles. In 
Africa we meet with the Greater and Lesser Atlas, of 
classic memories, reaching an elevation of some 12,000 
feet. In the New World, the Kocky Mountains and 
the Andes constitute one grand system, running from 
north to south, along the whole western edge of North 




»** h > r 



i»:::::::;!«ll 



THE THIRD DAY. 181 

and South America, a distance of over 8000 miles ; of 
this chain the highest point in South America is 
Nevado de Sorata, being 25,300 feet; and the highest 
in North America is St. Elia's peak, whose altitude is 
17,800 feet. Such are the grand and principal ranges 
of the world. 

These lofty mountain chains were not created in the 
beginning where and what we now behold them ; but 
have been subsequently formed by the elevation of the 
solid and rocky crust of the earth, thrust up by stupen- 
dous forces from beneath. Three things go to prove 
this fact: — 1. Geological observation proves to us as 
plainly as that a heap of oak chips must have once 
belonged to an oak tree, that the rocks which compose 
the loftiest mountains belong to formations whose 
natural and original positions are hundreds, and even 
thousands of feet below the present general surface of 
the earth. 2. The mountains still bear upon their 
own brows the evidence of their upheaval. If masses 
of rocks hundreds of miles in extent were raised to the 
elevation of mountains, they would naturally at differ- 
ent points break, and crack, and open into chasms by 
their own enormous weight; and this we find has 
actually been the case. The whole Alpine region ex- 
hibits such fractures ; at an elevation of some 4,000 feet 
we meet a chasm 100 feet wide, and descending to 
dark and unknown depths, all the prominences on one 
side exactly corresponding to the indentations on the 
other. In the Pyrenees are found four enormous 



182 THE THIRD DAY. 

chasms, almost perpendicular, which divide both moun- 
tains and their valleys, and which appear as if they 
had but just been rent asunder. The ranges of the 
Andes throughout present similar disruptions, indica- 
ting plainly the operation of the tremendous power to 
which they owe their present elevation. 3. The re- 
mains of marine animals, found in such variety and 
profusion far up these mountains, prove incontestably 
that they once existed beneath the ocean waters. On 
Mount La Bolca alone, not less than a hundred differ- 
ent species of fossil fishes have been found. And 
Humboldt discovered sea shells on the Andes at an 
elevation of more than 14,000 feet. — From all the fore- 
going facts, it is evident, that the mountains are eleva- 
tions of the earth's crust, effected long after its original 
creation. 

The diversity of surface which the Dry Land pre- 
sents in its mountains, plains and valleys, clearly ex- 
hibits the arrangements of the same beneficent wdsdom, 
as we have seen in the atmosphere and in the ocean. 
Yet some there have been, so devoid of both taste and 
wisdom, as to pronounce the rocks, precipices and 
mountains of the globe, as so many rude and unsightly 
excrescences on the face of nature ; and to hold that a 
smooth and level surface would have been far more to 
the advantage of man, as in that case travelling, 
agricultural operations, etc., would have been much 
facilitated. Such ideas can proceed only from igno- 
rance. Very many and most important are the bene- 



THE THIRD DA Y. 183 

fits derived to the world from the mountains and hills 
which so generally and so beautifully vary its surface. 

Mountains exert a most important influence upon 
climate, by affecting the currents of the atmosphere, 
mitigating the cold, intercepting the clouds, and shield- 
ing extensive districts from the unbroken violence of 
the storms, and northern blasts. They have been built 
up by the Great Architect, in selected situations and 
for specific ends — to direct the course of the winds 
whither he would have them blow, and to draw from 
the clouds their enriching moisture where they are 
needed. Mountain chains are, in fact, to be reckoned 
with the streams of the ocean, and the currents of the 
atmosphere of the number of the great agencies which 
He has arranged and combined to equalize the general 
temperature of the earth ; nor is it possible to calculate 
all the evils and disadvantages that would result from 
reducing them to its general level. 

To these lofty elevations the globe owes its magnifi- 
cent system of Elvers. Mountains are the great con- 
densers of the atmosphere, and the sources of springs, 
rills, brooks and rivers. They receive, in the form of 
rain or snow, the vapors with which the atmosphere is 
charged, even when the plains below may be parched, 
with drought. And hence the irregular and mountain- 
ous surface of the earth is veined over with the chan- 
nels of flowing water to supply the wants of all living 
creatures. If the earth had no mountains, and had 
been a uniform level, it would have been comparatively 



184 THE THIRD DAY. 

a marsh ; rains would have gathered in stagnant pools, 
and sent forth noxious exhalations, pregnant with dis- 
ease and death. 

Had the earth been formed a smooth and perfect 
globe, it would have been destitute of many of the 
plants and animals it now possesses, whose appropriate 
place and habitation are the mountains. " The high 
hills are a refuge for the goats, and the rocks for the 
conies." And on these elevations also grow many 
plants which cannot be successfully cultivated on the 
plains. In the forests which adorn the mountains' 
brow, and on the bare rocks of their summits, un- 
shielded from the chilling air, grow some of the rarest 
and most useful plants, botanical curiosities, and roots 
of medicinal virtue. 

But for the upheaval of the earth's crust into these 
mountain elevations, we should be, to the end of time, 
without most of those minerals so valuable and essential 
to man. If the surface of the ground had been level, 
and the several strata which compose it lay evenly and 
regularly, one below the other, like the coats of an 
onion, the upper stratum only would have been acces- 
sible to man. The various intermixture of limestone, 
granite, sandstone, clay, etc., which are now so advan- 
tageous to the fertility, and beauty, and habitability 
of the globe, in that case, would have no place. The 
inestimable treasures of salt, coal, iron, copper, etc., be- 
longing, as they do, for the most part, to the older and 
deeper formations, would have been forever beyond the 



THE THIRD DAY. 185 

reach of man. This the Divine Builder foresaw, and 
in equal wisdom and goodness employed his mighty 
powers to thrust up these layers into mountain heights, 
thus breaking them, and exposing their edges, with all 
their valuable contents, to the hand of man. 

Through the instrumentality of mountains man is 
also helped in what he cannot help himself in another 
way; their lofty summits, in many regions, serve as 
inexhaustible reservoirs of water, which they hold in 
the form of ice and snow, till summer advances, when 
they gradually melt, and flow down in grateful supplies 
to the panting plains below. In this way the snows 
and glaciers of the Himalayas feed the Ganges, the In- 
dus, and the Burhampootra ; and those of the Andes 
the streams which water Peru and Chili. The supplies 
of water thus secured from the mountain tops during 
the summer months is invaluable to some of the finest 
countries of the globe. 

Had our world been formed without mountains or 
hills, it would have been destitute of the grandest 
scenes that now adorn it. Deprived of these magnifi- 
cent and charming elevations, the face of nature would 
present an unvaried scene of dull uniformity, as fa- 
tiguing to the eye as the solitudes of Arabia, and as 
uninteresting to the mind as the monotony of the ocean. 
To its hills, and valleys, and mountain ranges, the 
earth owes its chief scenic grandeur — its sweet variety, 
its softer loveliness, and its rugged magnificence, which 
now make it so glorious a mirror of Power, and Wis- 
dom, and Goodness. 



186 THE THIRD DAY. 

As an example of the scenic grandeur of the moun- 
tains which adorn our globe, I set before the reader the 
majestic Ararat, of 17,750 feet height, as described by 
an eye-witness, Sir Robert K. Porter : — "As the vale 
opened beneath us, in our descent, my whole attention 
became absorbed in the view before me — a vast plain, 
peopled with countless villages ; the towers and spires 
of Eitchmai-adzen arising from amidst them ; the glit- 
tering waters of Araxes flowing through the green, fresh 
vale ; and the subordinate range of mountains skirting 
the base of the awful monument of the antediluvian 
world, it seemed to stand a stupendous link in the his- 
tory of man, uniting the two races of men before and 
after the flood. But it was not until we had arrived 
on the flat plain, that I beheld Ararat in all its ampli- 
tude and grandeur. From the spot on which I stood, 
it appeared as if the hugest mountains of the world had 
been piled upon each other to form this one sublime 
immensity of earth, and rock, and snow ! The icy 
peaks of its double head rose majestically into the clear 
and cloudless heaven; the sun blazed bright upon them, 
and the reflection sent forth a dazzling radiance equal 
to other suns. My eye, not able to rest for any length 
of time on the blending glories of its summits, wandered 
down the apparently interminable sides, till I could no 
longer trace their vast lines in the mists of the horizon ; 
when an inexpressible impulse, immediately carrying 
me upwards, again refixed my gaze on the awful glare 
of Ararat ; and this bewildered sensibility of sight being 



THE THIRD DAY. 187 

answered by a similar feeling in the mind, for some 
moments I was lost in a strange suspension of the 
powers of thought." What an object of surpassing 
grandeur is here set before us ! What a majestic and 
glorious monument to the praise of Him whose mighty 
power thrust upwards its stupendous mass from the 
depths of the sea, to be a rescuing place to the second 
father of mankind, and to be the memorial and admira- 
tion of his multiplied posterity through all succeeding 
time ! 

REFLECTIONS. 

As the builder decides by Rule the proportions of 
every column and the dimensions of every arch that 
enters into the noble structure that is rearing under 
his hand — so the Divine Architect in the erection of 
this earthly temple, " weighed its mountains in scales 
and its hills in a balance ;" their positions He deter- 
mined by unerring calculation, and their forms He 
carved out with his own right hand. Over the stupen- 
dous agencies employed in lifting them from their 
depths to their present elevations, He presided with 
unremitting attention, so that at every point, forces of 
a right intensity and right direction were made to co- 
operate, so as to work out infallibly every result and 
arrangement embraced in his eternal plan. Wild and 
convulsive as those forces appear to have been, all 
were directed by the most far-reaching foresight to 
purposes of human improvement and happiness. 
Gases, steam, earthquakes, volcanos — these were the 



188 THE THIRD DAY. 

tools wielded by the Divine Hand in the construction 
of man's world. Far from being lawless elements, or 
interferences with the terrene architecture, they were 
the very means by which it was built up into special 
order, at once most beautiful and most appropriate for 
him. And the praise of the great Master Builder now 
ascends from the frowning precipice and the snow- 
capped heights of the mountain, as well as from the 
luxuriance of the plains and the smiles of the valleys. 

When the Creator was forming the earth, and " His 
hand preparing the dry land," to be a habitation for 
man, He designed and constituted it to minister to him 
something more than the mere elements of bodily 
sustenance. Its' arrangements had reference to his 
mental as well as corporeal wants. Its substance was 
so moulded, its outlines so drawn, and its scenes so 
painted as to have an important bearing upon his 
intellectual and moral character. The mountains and 
the hills were to be to him as schools; and what 
magnificent educational institutions are they in these 
latter days found to be. Their mighty masses and far- 
reaching agencies — what are they but visible displays 
of the stupendous power and contriving skill of the 
Infinite. And their rocks — what are these but libra- 
ries abounding in treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; 
their every stratum being a volume written within and 
without, recording the deeds of Omnipotence in periods 
that long antedated the birth of our race. And the 
ever-varying scenery with which the earth is over- 



THE THIRD DAY. 189 

spread, doubtless, was also designed for man's instruc- 
tion — designed to delight, or rouse, or refine his soul, 
and to aid in forming his character and deciding his 
history. The extended plain, the naked cliff, the dis- 
tant forest, the deep and silent glen, the slow-flowing 
and meandering river, the rugged mountain, the bold 
headland, the thundering cataract — all were to be 
means of quickening the human mind into obedience to 
the Divine Will, or of soothing and inspiring the 
human heart for communion with the Divine Spirit. 

It was ordained, as history has revealed, that moun- 
tains should be associated with the most signal and 
important moral dispensations of Heaven toward our 
race. Those of the land of miracles stand before us as 
if sculptured and painted with sacred legend. Each, 
by the imperishable memory of the judgment, or the 
revelation, or the mercy with which it stands connected, 
reads to us a lesson of deep and solemn import. The 
majestic Ararat, lifting high its glittering summits, 
proclaims to the world in terms and tones that cannot 
be misunderstood, the inevitable vengeance that will 
finally overtake the impenitent and incorrigible. 
Moriali, with its altar and human victim, holds forth to 
our view the glorious triumph of implicit faith in God. 
Granitic Sinai, from amid clouds and thunderings, bids 
us hear and obey the Law of the Lord our God ; while 
Horeb, at its side, with its flinty rock and flowing 
stream, invites and woos us to its Antitype Divine, the 
Rock Christ Jesus, from whom flows the waters of life. 



190 THE THIRD DAY. 

Hor and PLsgali, in softened sadness, speak and prove to 
us from the graves of the chosen leaders of the sacra- 
mental hosts of God, that however useful or eminent, 
or honored our position may be, we, too, shall soon be 
called to render an account of our stewardship, and to 
lie down in the silence of the grave. The " excellency 
of Carniel" holds forth its signal and miraculous 
demonstration of the certain destruction of error and 
idolatry, and the ultimate triumph of truth and 
righteousness over every enemy. Encompassed with 
scenery of surpassing beauty, Tabor invites us to ascend 
its sacred height, and in meditation review the glorious 
scene of the transfiguration of the Son of Man, as in 
converse with Moses and Elias, saints returned from 
glory. And Olivet — mount of sacred and endearing 
memories — with soft and plaintive echoes is repeating 
in our ears, yea within our hearts, the wondrous words 
of agonizing love ! and bids us advance and view the 
spot from whence our triumphant holy Lord ascended 
far above all principality and power, and might, and 
dominion to the right hand of the Father Almighty. 

So has Divine Providence ordered events that these 
mountains have become enduring monuments, standing 
up in their might and grandeur, as witnesses for God, 
and for the Book of his truth, throughout all genera- 
tions. No authority of persecutors can silence the 
voice they utter; no efforts of infidels can efface the 
record graven upon their brows ; no edict of kings or 
potentates can extinguish the sacred associations with 



THE THIRD DAY. 191 

which their names will forever come up in the mind 
of man. So indelibly have the visitations of Heaven 
been stamped on the face of the earth. 



RIVERS. 

He cutteth out rivers among the rocks. 

Water is the vital fluid of the globe ; and the ocean 
the clouds, the rain, and the rivers are the four great 
organs by which its circulation is ceaselessly carried on. 
From the ocean water ascends in the form of vapors ; 
these vapors, in the higher regions of the firmament, 
are collected into clouds, and carried by the winds over 
plain and mountain tops ; and the mountains, acting as 
loadstones, draw from the clouds their treasures in 
showers — their wet and misty summits are untiringly 
occupied with this important work; and from these 
summits, on every side, the rains flow down in numer- 
ous rills, these coalesce into larger streams, and these 
streams again unite to form the great rivers, w r hich roll 
their waters back into the ocean ; thence, in due time, 
to pass through the same round again. Of this great 
physical fact no words can be a more correct and 
beautiful expression than those of scripture, "Unto the 
place from whence the rivers come, thither they return 
again." 

The number of rivers on the globe is very great ; it 
has been reckoned that there are, both in the Old and 



192 THE THIRD DAY. 

New World, nearly seven hundred principal streams, 
that discharge directly into the ocean. These, together 
with their innumerable tributaries, constitute a grand 
System of Drainage, with which the beneficent wisdom 
of the Creator has furrowed the face of the earth. 

In Europe, the Rhone, in its wanderings of four hun- 
dred and forty miles, drains the waters of an area of 
7,000 square miles. The Rhine, which has a length 
of seven hundred miles, carries to the sea the waters 
of a region of twice that extent. The Danube pursues 
a course of 1,800 miles, and draws its waters from an 
expanse of no less than 55,000 square miles. And the 
Volga, in its slow and turbid windings of 2,100 miles, 
gathers the waters of nearly one-half the great empire 
of Russia. 

Asia is traversed by a more magnificent system still. 
In China we have two rivers, each over 3,000 miles 
long ; and in Siberia, two others that rival them in di- 
mensions. The Irrawaddi and the Maykaung, in Siam, 
are both rivers of royal magnitude. In western Asia, 
are the Euphrates and Tigris, of ancient memory. And 
British India has principal rivers, whose united length 
exceeds 10,000 miles ; of which the most celebrated is 
the Ganges, which, after leaping into sight for the first 
time from a perpendicular wall of ice in the Himalayas, 
and pursuing a course of nearly 1,900 miles, draws its 
sacred waters from a district of unequalled fertility, 
embracing an area of not less than 400,000 square 
miles. 



THE THIRD DAY. 193 

Africa has but comparatively few rivers. The Niger 
stretches its crooked length over. 2,000 miles. The 
Nile, proceeding from its long-veiled sources, after wan- 
dering through 2,400 miles, flows through its remaining 
eight hundred miles, without receiving a single tribu- 
tary. 

But it is in America that we find rivers attain their 
full magnitude and grandeur. The St. Lawrence draws 
the waters of 300,000 square miles ; the Mississippi, of 
nearly 4,000 miles length, from a surface of 1,000,000 
square miles ; and the Amazon the waters of a region 
three times as large as that of all the rivers of Europe 
that empty themselves into the Atlantic, and present- 
ing, near its mouth, a stream of the gigantic dimensions 
of one hundred miles width and six hundred feet 
depth. — In the rivers, then, we have a system of drain- 
age and irrigation, of extent and grandeur commensu- 
rate with the amplitude of our globe, and worthy of 
Him, who, in the beginning, scooped out their channels, 
and taught them all their devious ways to the deep. 

The benefits derived to the world from its network 
of rivers are obviously incalculable. Besides draining 
the earth of its surplus waters, without which some of 
the fairest portions of its surface would soon be sub- 
merged, and become forever uninhabitable by man — 
they are the means by which all living creatures on 
the dry land are furnished with their needed drink, 
and man with a most valuable supply of food in the 
fishes they breed. They also open noble channels of 

13 



194 THE THIRD DAY. 

commerce with distant and interior countries; while, 
in their course to the sea, they offer unlimited power 
and facilities for manufacture. The value and import- 
ance of this great arrangement of our globe are strik- 
ingly evidenced by the fact that rivers have built, and 
have furnished the wealth of, the most renowned cities 
of the earth. The richest monuments of art and in- 
dustry which the world possesses are reflected in their 
waters. Thebes and Memphis owed their splendor to 
the Nile ; and Babylon its birth and greatness to the 
Euphrates. The Orontes furnished the site of Antioch; 
and the Tiber founded and erected Rome. The Thames 
has given to England its London ; and our own noble 
rivers have built us all the richest and busiest cities of 
the land. 

The rivers greatly add to the beauty of our world. 
Many of its most picturesque sceneries — its mountain 
gorges, its wild glens and ravines, its rushing rapids 
and roaring cataracts, which entrance the beholder — 
are due to the action and flow of streams. And what 
can be more interesting to the mind, or more delightful 
to the eye, than to behold the river at length emerging 
from the mountain's confined and contorted channel 
into the green and open plain, with banks lined with 
stately trees, widening and winding through its fertile 
meadows; now mirroring the beauties of town and 
villas, and now calmly sweeping through the populous 
city, and bearing on its placid bosom the ships and 
flags of different nations! Nowhere does our world 



THE THIRD DAY. 195 

array itself in sweeter or more pleasing features than 
along its river banks. Here are the earth's most de- 
lightful spots. A river, we find, was essential to com- 
plete the beauties and delights of Eden ; and it is with 
the flow of the " River of the waters of Life" that the 
Beloved Disciple gives the finishing touch to his sub- 
lime description of the Paradise above. 

REFLECTIONS. 

In the Rivers, as in the Mountains, we behold good- 
ness, ever-flowing goodness. The heathen Greeks, in 
order to represent the universal power and beneficence 
of Jupiter, used the symbol of a river flowing from his 
throne. Substituting the Living God for that imagin- 
ary deity, there will be truth and deep significance in 
the symbol. Ever since the morning of creation, the 
rivers have been the appointed ministers of his bounty; 
fertilizing, beautifying and blessing everywhere this 
abode of man. And while the mountains lift their 
towering summits to the glory of his mighty power, the 
rivers, all their journey through, sweetly murmur 
praises to the riches of his goodness. 

Rivers, like mountains, also, have their sacred asso- 
ciations. Their meanderings are the handwriting of 
Heaven in the soil of the earth, recording its own great 
transactions. The Euphrates, while it flows, will speak 
to man of the garden of innocence. Arnon and Jab- 
bok, Kishion and Kedron, will never cease to relate to 
the passing traveller their ancient memorials. And the 



196 THE THIRD DAY. 

river of Egypt — to a hundred generations already 
passed has this spoken of Jacob's favorite son, of God's 
oppressed people, and of their hidden deliverer among 
the reeds ; and to all the generations yet to come will 
it tell the same. Its mighty cities have perished, its 
kings have been forgotten, and even its stupendous 
pyramids are crumbling away ; but while the periodic 
waters of the Nile continue to rise and fall, they will 
continue to ripple in the ears of men the undying story 
of Joseph, and of the brickmakers, and of the infant 
Moses rescued from its banks. And as for that sacred 
stream, the Jordan, its very name is pregnant with a 
thousand memories of wonders and of love. Its source, 
its lakes, its shores, its quiet pools, its murmuring fords, 
its mysterious end — all are eloquent of Divine deeds, 
and miracles, and instructions ; nor will its voice or elo- 
quence lose its power till the stream of time is lost in 
the ocean of eternity. Vain, then, are the efforts of 
the wicked to efface the record of God, or to extinguish 
the religion which that record teaches. They, indeed, 
shall perish, but this shall endure, and " the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it." While the mountains 
stand, or the rivers flow, even inanimate nature will 
thus preach to the ransomed church of God, of his Law 
and of his Love to man. 

The flow of Kivers presents a striking and instruc- 
tive similitude of human life. " Life bears us on like 
the stream of a mighty river. Our boat at first goes 
down the vast channel through the playful murmur of 



THE THIRD DAY. 197 

the little brook, and the willows on its glassy borders. 
The trees shed their blossoms over our young heads; 
the flowers on the brink seem to offer themselves to 
our young hands. We are happy in hope, and grasp 
eagerly at the beauties around us ; but still the stream 
hurries on, and still our hands are empty. Our course 
in youth and manhood is along a wider and deeper 
flood, amid objects more striking and magnificent. We 
are animated by the moving picture of enjoyments. 
The stream bears us on, and joys and griefs are left 
behind us. We may be shipwrecked, but we cannot 
be delayed : or rough or smooth, the river hastens 
towards its home, till the roar of the ocean is in our 
ears, and the waves beneath our feet, and the floods 
are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth 
and its inhabitants — till of our future voyage there is 
no witness save the Infinite and Eternal."* 



VEGETATION. 

And the earth brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after his 
kind, and the tree yielding fruit after his kind. 

In the foregoing chapters we have traced the footsteps 
of the Creator in "preparing the dryland" — in describ- 
ing its coasts, elevating its mountains, furrowing out 
its water-courses, and overspreading its soil ; and now' 
we are called to witness its surface sowed and planted 

* Heber. 



198 THE THIRD DAY. 

with a vast and marvellous system of vegetation. In 
following the creative process we have, thus far, seen 
but matter only — inorganic matter in its various forms ; 
each and every change of form or location, in the air, 
the earth, and the water, being compelled or impressed 
by a force from without, "ceasing when that ceased, 
and never proceeding beyond its compulsory influence, 
either in direction or degree." But at this point a new 
phenomenon is introduced, and one incomparably in 
advance of all that has gone before. Now a new power 
is seen stirring in matter ; a power not only of selection 
or adaptation, but of assimilation, and, moreover of 
reproduction. It is here for the first time we witness 
Vitality in any of its forms — -a principle so mysterious 
in its essence, and so wonderful in its influence, as to 
be forever worthy our most devout study and admira- 
tion. 

In no department of Nature are the contriving 
Mind and creative Hand of God more visible than in 
the vegetable kingdom. Yet, when the question has 
been put to some who reject the Bible account of crea- 
tion, whence these vegetable productions, so diverse 
and so wonderful ? .they have answered, " They are the 
results of a natural tendency to combination, inherent 
in the particles of matter." But no such imaginary 
tendency will serve to explain these marvels of our 
earth. All plants are formed of similar component 
particles, varying only in their proportion and arrange- 
ment. Now these particles could not have an inherent 



THE THIRD DAY. 199 

tendency to be a thousand different and dissimilar 
things. If the particles or elements constituting vegeta- 
tion had a natural tendency to form a Rose, the same 
particles or elements could have no tendency in them- 
selves to compose a melon or a cocoanut. All tendency, 
if such a thing existed, must be specific and uniform ; 
otherwise it would be a tendency To be and Not to be, 
which is absurd. A tendency to diversity is an im- 
possibility. No such theory, therefore, can explain or 
account for the endless diversities of the vegetable 
world. It is in fact a mere fallacy of words ; for not a 
single tendency of this kind has been proved to exist. 
Plants are in their structure material machines, con- 
structed of substances taken out of their natural and 
preceding state, and so conjoined as that each uni- 
formly produces its precise and determinate effect or 
fruit. Now, as nothing but human skill and workman- 
ship can account for the construction of a watch, an 
organ, or a telescope, so nothing but Divine agency 
and intelligence will explain the manner in which the 
inert particles of matter become combined into a 
beautiful flower, a fruitful vine, or a stately oak ; for a 
careful examination will soon reveal to us that vegeta- 
ble arrangements are subject to mathematical laws, not 
less exact in themselves than those which regulate the 
movements of the planets in their orbits. 

The sacred Historian, it will be observed, here places 
the creation of the vegetable before that of the animal 
kingdom ; and this is the natural and necessary order 



200 TIIE THIRD DAY. 

of things, for the latter is dependent on the former for 
its support. Neither man, nor beast, nor bird, can 
draw his sustenance directly from the soil ; its juices 
and particles must pass through the laboratory of 
vegetable organization before they are fit nourishment 
for animal life. Vegetation could have existed without 
animals; but animals could not have lived without 
vegetables. Hence we see the correctness of the 
Mosaic account in placing plants before animals* 

The vegetation of the earth, in the History before us, 
is described and comprehended under three general 
divisions : First, Grasses ; second, Herbs yielding seed ; 
Third, Trees yielding fruit. And here we have pre- 
cisely the system adopted by botanists after ages of 
study, as the true arrangement and classification of the 
vegetable kingdom. These seedless, and these seed- 
bearing, and these fruit-bearing plants, are identical 
with the acotylidons, monocotylidons, and dicotylidons 
of Linneus, Jussieu, De Candolle, and all modern 
botanists. And it is both curious and interesting to 
remark, that a system which it has taken centuries to 
mature, and which successive botanists have labored 
age after age to advance to perfection, should at last 
prove the very same as that enunciated by Moses 
thirty-three centuries ago; and that naturalists after 
wandering for thousands of years more and more from 
this true system, should gradually and unconsciously 
have returned to it, and never discover the identity 
until after the return was made ! Have we not, then, 



THE THIRD DAY. 201 

in this fact, a pleasing evidence, and one altogether 
above suspicion, that the pen which traced the history 
of creation was guided by Him who designed and crea- 
ted the whole vegetable world ? 

Each of the above classes includes numerous orders, 
each order a number of genera, each genus many species, 
and every species a number of individuals defying all 
enumeration. So diversified in character, and so pro- 
lific in nature, are the vegetable creations, that they 
have spread and taken possession of every spot and 
region of the earth's surface. They are found in every 
variety of situations, and grow under conditions the 
most opposite and contrary. We see them, in one 
form or another, spring up and thrive, where before- 
hand we should have supposed there was neither food 
nor foothold for them, and should have said their exist- 
ence was impossible. Some grow and flourish at the 
bottom of lakes and rivers ; many spring up, and not a 
few of them of rare beauty, in the midst of the sandy 
and arid deserts ; others plant themselves on the naked 
rock, and send down their roots to draw up their food 
from the scanty moisture of its crevices. In a word, 
vegetable life appears to be adapted to every possible 
situation that the surface of the globe presents — to the 
bed of the sea, to the cavern of the mountain, to the 
bare granite, to the cinders of the volcano, to the stag- 
nant pool, and the emerging reef, to the heated sands 
of the Sahara, and to the frozen regions of the pole. In 
all these situations vegetable organizations of one kind 



202 TIIE THIRD DAY. 

or another have been found. What matchless skill do 
we herein behold in overcoming difficulties and 
extremes ! 

Nothing can be more astonishing than the unbounded 
variety of trees, herbs, and grasses, that adorn the 
earth; nor can anything more clearly exhibit the 
abounding goodness of the Creator. Nothing that either 
the necessity, or the improvement, or the pleasure of 
his creatures could demand, appears to be wanting. 
Grasses and herbs, in endless diversity, abound, to meet 
the various tastes and habits of all living things. 
Fruit-plants, and fruit-trees, adapted to every climate 
and soil, proffer food to man, and beast, and bird, in 
every form and of every flavor. Flowers to delight us 
with their beauties, and to regale us with their odors. 
Shrubs and vines, without number, to shade and adorn 
our habitations. Add to all these the forest trees, 
which offer to man timber fitted for all the purposes of 
art and industry — the soft pine and poplar ; the hard 
oak, beech and holly ; the light cedar and lime ; the 
heavy ebony and lignum vitse ; the flowery mahogany 
and rosewood ; the tough hickory and elm ; the incor- 
ruptible teak, and durable yew ; and a hundred other 
kinds adapted both for use and ornament. What mu- 
nificence is here displayed ! The Creator might have 
furnished the earth with vegetation, and yet have 
limited himself to a few species of each of the three 
great divisions; but, instead of this, we scarce find 
bounds to the variety in each of them. We read that 



THE THIRD DAY. 203 

there are 100,000 different species of plants, and we 
are bewildered at the thought of the countless varieties 
of hue, and size, and form, which such a vast host ex- 
hibit. But not only do the various species of vegetation 
thus differ, but even the individuals of the same species 
differ. Of the innumerable myriads of trees, shrubs, 
herbs and grasses, which cover the earth, no two indi- 
viduals can be found that are alike in all respects. It 
is even probable that there is not a single blade of grass 
in the meadow, nor a single grain of wheat in the field, 
nor a single leaf in the forest, that will not be found to 
differ, in some respects, from all its fellows. Such is 
the diversity with which this terrestrial abode of man 
has been furnished and adorned. 

The general vegetative covering given to the earth 
is grass ; and in this, as in all else, the Divine wisdom 
and goodness are equally conspicuous. Upwards of 
three hundred genera, and more than 5,000 different 
species of grass, grow upon the surface of the earth. 
This needful sustenance of our herds and flocks, and 
of the beasts of the forests, is everywhere spread over 
its dusky soil, and is so constituted as to grow without 
care or cultivation ; nay, in spite of every kind of abuse 
and violence. Like a living carpet, it covers and 
adorns the face of nature. Self-propagating, and self- 
perpetuating, it supplies the wants of every passing age 
with undiminished abundance. Though ever trodden 
upon, and fed upon, it still lives. Lay it low to-day 
with a roller, and to-morrow it is stronger than before. 



204 THE THIRD DAY. 

Mow it with the scythe, and it renews and multiplies 
its shoots with fresher vigor. Crush it with the foot, 
and it sends up richer perfume. Bury it through all 
the winter months, beneath ice and snow, and in the 
spring it starts forth with all the glowing verdancy of 
its first creation. It survives every abuse, and seems 
to exult under all kind of violence and suffering — a 
beautiful emblem of the true Christian spirit. Add to 
all this its beauty: in every landscape it is the most 
conspicuous object, the ground color on which nature 
embroiders her varied patterns, and from the midst of 
which the gay hues of flowers come forth in greater 
brilliancy, by the force of contrast, to arrest the admir- 
ing gaze. A model of symmetry, elegance and strength, 
is each little spear of grass that pierces the sod and 
shimmers in the sunshine. "And the flower of the 
grass " — it is a miracle of design. " The grass of the 
field " — the very sound carries in it all the charms of 
nature, all the delights of spring and summer — the 
silent scented paths — the green banks of the murmur- 
ing brook — the waving meadows — the pastures of the 
meditative shepherd — the verdant lawns, glittering 
with the pearls of early dew. What a concourse of 
wonders, and beauties, and blessings, have we, then, 
even in the grass, that we so heedlessly and constantly 
trample under foot ! 

The general color given to vegetation is another fact 
worthy of grateful notice, a soft and pleasant green. 
" Had the fields been clothed with hues of deep red, or 



THE THIRD DAY. 205 

a brillianf white, the eye would have been dazzled with 
the splendor of their aspect. Had a dark blue, or a 
black color generally prevailed, it would have cast a 
universal gloom over the face of nature. But an agree- 
able green holds the medium between these two ex- 
tremes, equally removed from a dismal gloom and 
excessive splendor, and bears such a relation to the 
structure of the eye, that it refreshes, instead of tiring 
it, and supports, instead of diminishing its force. At 
the same time, though one general color prevails over 
the landscape of the earth, it is diversified by an ad- 
mirable" variety of shades, so that every individual 
object in the vegetable world can be accurately distin- 
guished from another ; thus producing a beautiful and 
variegated appearance over the whole scenery of nature. 
' Who sees not in all these things that the hand of the 
Lord hath wrought this?'"* 

If, from these general features, we proceed to make 
closer and more minute examination of the vegetable 
creation, we shall discover, at every step, wonders of 
wisdom and skill surpassing not only all imitation, but, 
all understanding — we shall find that every green blade 
that springs from the ground is a magazine of contri- 
vances ; that every leaf is a theatre of organized won- 
ders; that every fibre of tree, or straw, or stem, vibrates 
to the quickening influence of light ; that every opening 
flower holds communion with the distant sun ; and that 

* Dick's Christ. Phil. . 



206 THE THIRD DAY. 

every root that spreads through the humid soil, by a 
chemistry of its own, selects such elements from the 
earth as are suitable for the growth and perfection of 
the plant which it bears — a chemistry so wonderful 
and infallible in its operation, that, though springing 
from the same soil, and growing side by side, we never 
gather grapes of thorns, nor figs from thistles. — We 
now proceed to notice the general parts and functions 
of trees and plants, beginning with 

1. The Roots. The roots serve two important and 
special purposes; the first a mechanical one, namely, 
to attach the plant or tree to the soil, and support it 
there in its proper position. How this is done need 
not be stated. Our admiration, however, cannot but 
be excited, when we consider that the force exerted by 
high winds upon a lofty and wide-spreading tree, full 
of leaves, is immense, and yet see how admirably con- 
trived the roots are to take hold upon the ground, and 
chain it there through all the tempests of the year. 
But roots have another office; and that is, to select 
and draw suitable juices from the soil, for the nourish- 
ment of the tree or plant. This is done by little pro- 
tuberances called spongioles, situated at the extremities 
of the rootlets. These spongioles appear to possess the 
faculty or power of selecting from the mixed constitu- 
ents of the soil their food, and of rejecting what is un- 
suitable or hurtful to the plant. The roots of half a 
dozen plants may be intertwined and matted together 
in the same mass of soil, yet the spongioles of each will 



THE THIRD DAY. 207 

take up its own peculiar food infallibly. And not only 
this, but they seem to discern instinctively where spots 
of earth, rich in food, lie, and will push and stretch to- 
ward them, and in doing this will often force their way 
between the layers of rock, and even through solid 
masonry. 

2. Leaving the roots, we ascend to the Leaves. The 
leaf is the principal organ of every plant ; from it the 
tree, with all its parts, is developed. All plants 
are produced from seeds or buds. Now, the seed in 
which the plant originates, when carefully examined, 
is found to be composed of a leaf rolled tightly, and 
altered in tissue and contents, so as to suit its new re- 
quirements. The bud also consists of leaves folded in 
a peculiar manner, and covered with hardened scales 
to protect them from the winter cold. And the flowers, 
the glory of the vegetable world, are merely leaves ar- 
ranged so as to protect the vital organs within them, 
and colored so as to attract insects to scatter the fertil- 
izing pollen, and to reflect or absorb the light and heat 
of the sun for ripening the seed. Some naturalists 
think they see in the stem also clear indications of its 
foliaceous origin ; and maintain that they are able to 
show, that even the fruit, in all its astonishing variety 
of texture, color, and shape, is, in like manner, but a 
modified leaf. Thus, in all the parts and organs of a 
plant or tree, from the seed to the fruit, the leaf is 
found to be the basis; and from this the whole has been 
developed. 



208 THE THIRD DAY. 

The leaf presents a distinct and accurate type of the 
whole plant or tree upon which it grows. As the 
builder draws upon the parchment a complete plan of 
his intended edifice, so the Divine Architect has en 
graven on the leaf the plan of the tree of which it is 
an appendage. "Each leaf," says McMillan, "in shape 
and formation, may be regarded as a miniature picture, 
a model of the whole plant on which it grows. The 
outline of a tree, in full summer foliage, may be seen 
represented in the outline of any one of its leaves. Tall 
pyramidal trees have narrow long leaves, as we see in 
the needles of the pine ; while wide-spreading trees, on 
the other hand, have broad leaves, as may be observed 
in those of the elm or sycamore. The correspondence 
is remarkably exact, and cannot fail to strike with 
wonder every one who notices it for the first time. 
Examining the leaf more carefully, we find that the 
fibrous veins, which ramify over its surface, bear a close 
resemblance to the ramification of the trunk and 
branches of the parent tree; they are both given off at 
the same angles, and are so precisely alike in their 
complexity or simplicity, that from a single leaf, or 
even a part of a leaf, we can predicate, with the utmost 
certainty, the appearance of the whole tree from which 
it fell. It has further been remarked, that trees which 
are feathered with branches down to the ground, have 
leaves with very short footstalks; while trees that have 
long, naked trunks, have leaves with lengthened foot- 
stalks. In tree, and shrub, and grass, the plant-pattern 



THE THIRD DAY. 209 

is repeated in the leaf-pattern ; and, in some instances, 
the resemblance is very extraordinary." 

If we pursue our study of leaves still further, and 
centemplate their chemical functions, we shall find each 
a marvel and a mystery in itself. Every leaf is an in- 
dividual, gifted with peculiar powers ; its stomata and 
other organs, constitute a complete laboratory ; it ab- 
sorbs air, and exhales moisture ; it elects the carbon, 
and sends forth as useless the excess of oxygen ; it ex- 
tracts from the sunbeam its chlorophyl, and with it 
adorns itself in the charms of verdancy. In a word, it 
embodies in its thin and distended form one of the most 
wonderful examples of organic chemistry. It is at 
once full of science and full of poetry. 

3. Let us glance next at the Flo wees. Flowers are 
the most beautiful productions of the vegetable king- 
dom ; and, as to the delicacy of their forms, the beauty 
of their coloring, and the sweetness of their odor, seem 
pre-eminently designed for the pleasure of man, for he 
alone of all the living tenants of the earth is capable 
of appreciating them. Indeed, in the flowers, the 
Divine Hand appears to have combined all the elements 
of pure and refined enjoyment for his earthly offspring. 
While they minister to the delight of his senses, they 
at the same time softly and sweetly read to his mind 
lessons of innocence and wisdom, well calculated to 
make him a wiser and better being. Whether we 
contemplate the symmetry of the stems and leaves, the 

splendor and harmony of their colors, the delicacy of 
14 



210 THE THIRD DAY. 

their organs, the variety of their tints, or the delicious 
fragrance they everywhere breathe around us — they 
exhibit to us wonders and excellencies surpassing all 
admiration. The statement that " Solomon in all his 
glory was not arrayed like one of these/' may seem to 
the ignorant a forced expression ; but it is in fact one 
beautifully true. Take Solomon's most admired pur- 
ple, or take even the finest fabric produced by the ut- 
most ingenuity of modern skill, and view it through a 
microscope, and it becomes hideous ropes and rags, 
while " the lily of the field," viewed through the same 
instrument, becomes infinitely more exquisite in its 
finish, its beauty and its grace. Flowers are the gems 
of the earth, the productions of a skill and taste which 
never fall short of the perfection of elegance. 

While the flowers thus diffuse pleasure all around, 
they at the same time perform several important func- 
tions in connection with the reproduction of the species. 
Among flowers, as in the animal kingdom, is found the 
distinction of male and female. All flowers are fur- 
nished with both stamens and pistils, either in the same 
individual, or in two distinct individuals. The several 
parts of these two organs are formed with evident and 
striking adaptation to one another. The pistil contains 
the germ of the seed, which is so constituted as to 
require, and so fashioned as to be ready to receive the 
element of fertilization from without ; and the stamen 
is so constituted as to produce, and so formed as to 
shed that element thereon, and thus perfect the seed, 



THE THIRD DAY. 211 

which are the appointed means to ensure the reproduc- 
tion of the species while the individual perishes. 

In the great majority of cases the stamens and pistils 
are found on the same plant, the former overtopping 
the latter, an adjustment which enables the stigma 
readily to receive the falling pollen as it drops from the 
anther. In drooping flowers, such as the fuchsia, the 
relation of these parts is inverted in correspondence 
with the altered position of the flower — the pistil now 
overtopping the stamen. In fact, nothing can be more 
beautiful and impressive than the great variety of 
adaptations by which, in special cases, communication 
is secured between the pollen and the pistils. In the 
common Barberry, the lower part of the filament is so 
sensitive, that whenever it is touched, the stamen 
moves forward to the pistil. In the Stylewort, where 
the stamens and pistils are united in one column which 
projects from the flower, this column is very irritable at 
the angle where it leaves the flower, and when touched, 
it passes with a sudden jerk from one side to the other, 
and thus scatters the pollen. The process of communi- 
cation in some cases is effected by the wind ; and in 
others, after a more complicated and ingenious manner, 
by insects. 

It will be interesting to follow this process of fecunda- 
tion a little further. In order to accomplish it more 
effectually, the stigma exudes a slightly glutinous fluid, 
to which the grains of pollen adhere. These grains 
have each two coats, one of which bursts when the 



212 THE THIRD DAY. 

grain is ripe, and the other, in touching the stigma, 
elongates itself into the shape of a slender tube, passing 
downward through the style into the ovary, and so 
conveying to the germ the vivifying fluid. " The cells 
of the stigma are beautifully contrived to admit the 
passage of these tubes, as they are long, and extremely 
loose in texture, at the same time so moist and elastic 
as to be easily compressed when necessary. It is so 
contrived that the minute particles contained in the 
grains enter slowly to the ovary, as it seems necessary 
that the fecundating matter should be admitted by 
degrees. It is also necessary that the tube should 
enter the foramen of the ovule ; and as the ovule is not 
always in a proper position to receive it, it will be 
found to erect itself or to turn, as the case may be, 
while the granules of the pollen are passing down the 
tubes."* 

Now one important office of the beautiful flowers is 
to protect and cherish these delicate parts and processes 
of reproduction ; and amid all the profusion of their 
elegance, and the variety of their forms, this end is 
never for once forgotten. Most admirably do they ful- 
fil this function ; as if instinct with parental tenderness, 
they open their bosoms to the sun, they bend toward 
him, and not unfrequently follow him in his circuit, 
that from morning till evening they may receive his 
full vivifying beams. When night is coming on, or a 
storm is approaching, if their precious charge is so deli- 

* Chambers* Veget. Phys., p. 79. 



THE THIRD DAY, 213 

cate as to be liable to injury by cold or wet, they care- 
fully draw their leaves together, and enclose their 
sacred trust within a beauteous canopy, which, when 
the threatening evil is removed, they unfold as before. 
So vigilant in this duty are many flowers, that they 
have been observed to shut their petals during an 
eclipse of the sun, and to open them again as soon as 
the obscuration was past. 

Flowers exhibit many powers and properties which 
the science of man has never been able to explain. 
Some will instantly close upon the slightest touch. 
Some will flutter, as if in alarm, upon sudden exposure 
to intense light. Some seem possessed of limited pow- 
ers of locomotion ; a certain species of wild oats, when 
placed upon a table, will spontaneously move; pea- 
blossoms always turn their backs upon the wind ; the 
heliotrope always faces the sun ; the tulip opens its 
petals when the weather is fine, but closes them during 
rain and darkness. The pond-lily closes its pure white 
leaves at night, as it lies on its watery bed, but unfolds 
them again in the morning. On the other hand, some 
flowers open only at night ; that splendid flower, the 
night-blooming cereus, is of this kind; it opens but 
once, and that in the night, for a few hours only, then 
wilts and dies without ever admitting the light of day 
into its bosom. Some open and shut at certain hours, 
and that so regularly as to indicate the time of day, 
like the sindrimal of Hindostan, which opens at four in 
the evening and closes at four in the morning. Dr. 



214 THE THIRD DAY. 

Good, in his Book of Nature, describes a water-plant, 
valisneria spiralis, which, at a certain season, detaches 
itself from its stem, and, like a gallant suitor, sails 
complacently over the waters in pursuit of a mate, till 
he find her. Other flowers there are, as the nepenthes, 
that will adroitly catch flies and devour them. Others 
again possess a most extraordinary luminous property ; 
the nasturtium, if plucked during sunshine, and carried 
into a dark room, will there show itself by its own 
light; a plant that abounds in the jungles of Madura 
illumines the ground to a distance all around; and 
many species of lichens, creeping along the roofs of 
caverns, lend to them an air of enchantment, by the 
soft and clear light they diffuse. Who can explain to 
us these phenomena of flowers ? Who but must see 
that the hand and counsel of Infinite Wisdom are con- 
cerned in the production of these vegetable wonders ! 

I add but one fact more respecting flowers, and that 
is, the jpoicer which each flower has to regulate for itself 
the heat of the sun. It is well known that objects re- 
flect or absorb heat from the sun according to the shade 
of their color — that a perfectly white surface will reflect 
or throw back all its rays, and remain comparatively 
cool beneath them through a whole summer's day — 
that a dark-colored object will absorb part, and reflect 
part, and be heated in proportion to the darkness of its 
shade — and, that a perfectly black surface will absorb 
all the rays, and become quite hot in the sun. And 
this property of colors reveals to us a most beautiful 



THE THIRD DAY. 215 

arrangement in the constitution of flowers. " To every 
plant/' says the author of The Poetry of Science, " that 
spreads out its leaves to the sunshine, and to every 
flower that lends its beauty to the earth, is given that 
particular shade and color that will measure for it the 
precise degree of heat which its own peculiar constitu- 
tion requires. The chalice-like cup of the pure white 
lily, floating on the lake, the variegated tulip, the deli- 
cate rose, and the intensely-colored dahlia — have each 
powers peculiar to themselves for drinking in the warm 
life-stream of the sun, and for radiating it back again 
to the thirsty atmosphere." And thus every plant is 
endowed with functions which silently, but unerringly, 
determine the quantity of heat which it needs, and the 
relative amount of dew which shall wet its leaves and 
its flowers. The outward form and color of a flower, 
indeed, delight our eye and excite our admiration ; but 
when we come to contemplate this wonderful arrange- 
ment, which so happily regulates the power of the sun- 
beams that are incessantly poured into its delicate 
bosom, our wonder must be raised to the higher feeling 
of profound adoration toward the Great Designer and 
Maker of all. 

Such are the floral creations. And now, what could 
exceed them in beauty or perfection? Nothing, in 
form, function, or constitution, is defective ; nothing is 
left to chance or accident ; but every organ, every pro- 
cess, every property, to its most minute and insignifi- 
cant details, is manifestly contrived and perfected by 



216 THE THIRD DAY. 

omniscient and unerring skill. Who can set his eye 
upon a flower, delicate, and beauteous, and fragrant, 
and lay his hand upon the damp and dusky ground 
from which it springs, but must exclaim, with the pious 
peasant of Scotland, " What but almighty power could 
extract this from that !" And when we observe that 
each of the tiny bristles of the leaves, and even each 
shadowy down of the, petals, too minute for the unaided 
eye, is measured and planted with undeviating dis- 
crimination and precision, can we doubt the truth, or 
refuse the consolation, of the Saviour's assurance, " The 
very hairs of your head are all numbered V 

4. Following the order of nature, we are next brought 
to notice the Seeds. Here opens before us another field 
of great interest. A seed, a grain of seed, as commonly 
regarded, is but an insignificant object, and attracts 
but little attention ; yet that grain of seed, within its 
small circumference, and beneath its dusky rind, em- 
bodies an organization possessing properties which the 
united wisdom and ingenuity of mankind could never 
produce. In the seed lies the future plant in miniature. 
The whole of the beauteous lily, which engages the ad- 
miration of every beholder, once lay folded up within 
a little dingy bulb ; its leaves and blossoms are only a 
development of what was hidden within the scales of 
that unattractive root. And within the narrow com- 
pass of the acorn are folded up, with infinite nicety, all 
the rudiments of the towering oak. 

The origination of the seed in the bosom of the 



THE THIRD DAY. 217 

flower has already been described. As soon as that 
step has been fully accomplished, the flower decays, 
while the seed-vessel forms, and increases in bulk. And 
now let us devote a moment to look at the admirable 
contrivance of these vessels, or capsules, in which the 
various seeds are lodged and protected while they ma- 
ture. These are so many, so diverse, and often so 
complicated in their forms and materials, that it would 
seem as if they had been adopted only for the sake of 
demonstrating the inexhaustible resources of the Divine 
invention. Some are invested in close tunicles, some 
are surrounded with hard shells, some are elaborately 
folded in leaves, some are deposited in rows within 
parchment pods, some are in cases lined with softest 
velvet, some are wrapped in wool, some are held as in 
blown bladders, some are placed between hard scales, 
some are defended by pointed thorns, some are housed 
as beneath a roof, some are within slits made in the 
edge of the leaves, some are buried in the heart of the 
fruit, and some in various other manners. So diverse 
are the ways in which Infinite Wisdom can accomplish 
its purpose with equal ease and equal success. 

The fecundity of plants, or their capacity for pro- 
ducing seed, presents us with another remarkable fact. 
The common cereals often yield from sixty to a hundred 
fold. One castor oil plant will produce 1,500, one sun- 
flower 4,000, and one thistle 24,000 seeds in a single 
season. From one grain of maize, or Indian Corn, if it 
and all its produce were from year to year planted and 



218 THE THIRD DAY. 

duly cultivated, in favorable soil and climate, sufficient 
seed might be raised in five years to plant a hill of corn 
with three grains on every square yard of dry land 
upon the face of the globe ; and in ten years sufficient 
to plant the whole solar system in the same manner ! 
Such were the import and efficacy of the creative fiat, 
" Let the earth' bring forth herb yielding seed after his 
kind." And this unbounded fecundity is one of the 
many demonstrations we have in creation of the good- 
ness of God, who has thus made abundant provision, 
not only to perpetuate vegetation, but also to meet the 
wants of all his creatures. 

Another interesting fact connected with seeds is the 
arrangement made for their dispersion. If all seeds 
were to drop, and remain upon the spots where they 
are produced, they could never germinate, nor be of 
much avail if they did. Adequate means for their dis- 
semination, therefore, were all-important ; nor was this 
point overlooked, multifarious as were the works of this 
day. Most interesting and beautiful are the contri- 
vances employed for this end. Sometimes the pericarp, 
or the vessel containing the seed, opens elastically, as 
with a mechanical spring, and discharges the seeds con- 
tained in its cavity to a considerable distance. The 
liura crepitans, of the West Indies and South America, 
opens its pericarp with a report loud as that of a pistol, 
and scatters its seed with a great force. Some seeds, 
as those of the thistle and dandelion, are provided with 
a beautiful stellate down, which serves as wings, and 



THE THIRD DAY. 219 

by means of which they often travel many miles. The 
spores of the ferns and mosses have been constituted so 
minute and light that they rise in the atmosphere, and 
are conveyed by the winds across seas and oceans. 
Other seeds, as the burdock, are furnished with little 
hooks, by means of which they cling to men and beasts 
as they pass by, and are thus scattered far and wide. 
Other seed still, like those of the milk-weed and willow- 
herb, are hairy, and so are easily lifted by every cur- 
rent of air, and carried to a distance. Birds, also, are 
important agents in this great work ; birds are natural 
planters of trees ; crows have been seen planting acorns 
over wide tracts of land, from which have sprung valu- 
able groves of oak. Add to all the above the fact, that 
the seeds of many berries, and of small fruits, will 
grow after passing through the bodies of birds ; and as 
many of the feathered tribes in autumn, when the 
seeds are ripe, migrate from north to south, they often 
void the seeds they have eaten at the distance of hun- 
dreds of miles. Some seeds are covered with a viscid 
substance, by which they adhere to whatever touches 
them, and in this manner are carried from place to 
place. Many of the heavier seeds, such as acorns, are 
gathered and buried by mice, squirrels, etc., of which, 
while part is consumed, many are left in the ground to 
germinate. Kaiiis, and rivers, also, often carry seeds 
hundreds and even thousands of miles from where they 
were produced ; and the ocean not unfrequently bears 
them to the shores of other continents, or wafts them 



220 THE THIRD DAY. 

upon the coral islands just risen from its bosom, and 
thus soon covers them with vegetation. In these vari- 
ous ways was the surface of the earth overspread with 
the vegetable creations of the third day ; and, as we 
may well suppose, the work was not very long in being 
accomplished. 

The seed having been dispersed and dropped in the 
soil, the next process to be noticed is its germination. 
To this certain conditions are necessary. A certain 
degree of heat must be had ; at a temperature below 
freezing point, seed will not germinate, and if the tem- 
perature be up to, or very near, the boiling point of 
water, it will not germinate, but die. The most suit- 
able temperature for each particular plant varies 
between these limits according to the nature of the 
plant. Again — if seeds have the necessary warmth and 
moisture, yet if exposed to bright light, they will not 
germinate; shade is always, absolute darkness some- 
times, necessary for the success of the germinating pro- 
cess. If the seed enjoys all the required conditions of 
shade, water, air and heat, it will grow and flourish. 
When a seed, a grain of wheat, say, is cast into the 
ground, from one end of it issues a plumule, or tender 
sprout ; from the other a number of fibrous threads ; 
the plumule immediately tends upward, and works for 
the air and light, and becomes a plant ; the fibres also 
at once struggle downwards, and become the roots. 
" Now, what is a little remarkable," says Paley, " the 
parts issuing from the seed take their respective di- 



THE THIRD DAY. 221 

rections, into whatever position the seed itself happens 
to be cast. If the seed be thrown into the wrongest 
possible position, that is, if the ends in the ground point 
the reverse of what they ought to do, everything, never- 
theless, goes on right. The sprout, after being pushed 
out a little way, makes a bend and turns upwards ; the 
fibres, on the contrary, after shooting at first upward, 
turn down." This fact is not more wonderful than it 
is important ; for, how unprofitable would be the labors 
of the husbandman, if only the grains that happened to 
be right end up would prove productive, for scarce one 
seed out of a hundred would be found in this position. 
Or, how endless would be his toil, if he had, with care, 
to place each particular seed in the ground with plum- 
ule end up. But for the present wise and happy con- 
stitution of the seed, by which each part proceeds in 
its right direction, and to fulfil its appointed office, 
where would be our daily bread ? How manifest both 
the wisdom and goodness of God in this thing. 

The longevity of seeds, or the power which they pos- 
sess for retaining the vital principle for lengthy periods 
of time, is another remarkable fact to be noticed here. 
This is an important provision, as it supplies a safe- 
guard against the extinction of the species under un- 
favorable circumstances, which may often occur. If 
the condition of things now will not permit the little 
seed to germinate and grow, it still retains its vitality, 
as if hoping for a better day. A grain of mustard seed 
has been known to lie in the earth for a hundred years, 



222 THE THIRD DAY. 

and as soon as it had acquired a favorable situation, to 
shoot as vigorously as if just gathered from the plant. 
Seeds of wild-flowers, buried beneath mounds that have 
existed from time immemorial, as soon as exposed to 
sun and rain, have sprouted forth as vigorously as if 
they had been the produce of last summer. The lapse 
of ages will not extinguish life in some of the most 
valuable seeds. Several examples of this were given 
on a former page ; * I will, therefore, add only one more. 
"In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, a man died 
soon after he had eaten plentifully of raspberries. He 
was buried at Dorchester. About thirty years ago the 
remains of this man, together with coins of the Eoman 
Emperor, were discovered in a coffin at the bottom of a 
barrow, thirty feet under the surface. The man had 
thus lain undisturbed for some 1700 years. But the 
most curious circumstance connected with the case was, 
that the raspberry seeds were recovered from the 
stomach, and sown in the garden of the Horticultural 
Society, where they germinated and grew into healthy 
bushes." -j- What a wondrous creation, then, have we 
in a grain of seed ! What a mystery is its life, that 
can thus well nigh immortalize its tiny and delicate 
organism, preserving it uninjured and unchanged 
through the lapse of hundreds and thousands of years ! 
As plainly do the small and dusky seed in the soil, as 
the most brilliant orbs in the heavens, proclaim, " The 
Hand that made us is Divine." 

* See p. 62. f Benedicite, p. 266. 



THE THIRD DAY. 223 

5. The Edible, and other Useful productions of 
plants, is another subject that demands our grateful 
consideration. Here opens before us a field of un- 
bounded munificence — here is everything good for sus- 
tenance, pleasant to the taste, and delightful to the 
eye ; here is food to nourish us, materials to clothe 
us, and medicines to heal us. Nowhere in the visible 
creation do we behold a more striking display of the 
indulgent beneficence of our Father in heaven than in 
the fruits of the earth. Here we find not only an 
abundant provision made to meet our actual wants, but 
an endless variety to gratify our tastes, and to enhance 
our pleasures. God might have limited our food to a 
few comparatively insipid roots, tubers, and bulbs in 
the ground; but, instead of this, He has appointed 
plants, herbs, shrubs, vines, and trees of every imagin- 
able description, to produce and bring forth fruit after 
their kind for the service of man. He might have 
made all these of the same, or nearly the same, taste ; 
but so far from this was his Divine generosity, that w r e 
have almost an interminable variety of fragrance and 
flavor, of sweetness and acid, of mellowness and pun- 
gency; and all so wonderfully suited to gratify our 
taste, to stimulate our appetite, and to yield us every 
required and desirable nutriment in health and in sick- 
ness. He might have so constituted fruit trees and 
plants as that their production would be confined to 
one particular kind of soil, or one special climate ; but, 
instead of this, He has adapted them, in one form or 



224 THE THIRD DAY. 

another, for all soils, and for every habitable climate 
of the globe, so that all His children may be sharers of 
His bounties. Moreover, He might have so arranged 
the vegetable creation as that all the fruits and produc- 
tions of the earth should mature and ripen at the same 
season, but His Divine wisdom and goodness have 
strewn them along in succession through all the months 
of the summer half of the year, so as constantly to 
yield us a fresh and varied supply. 

To the foregoing properties of fruit-bearing plants 
and trees we must add another important one — their 
capacity for improvement. The Creator might have so 
made these as to be unchangeable in their character, 
unimprovable by any art or effort that could be 
brought to bear upon them; but in his wisdom and 
kindness He has so constituted them as at once to 
stimulate the ingenuity and reward the industry of 
man, by being susceptible of improvement and varia- 
tion without limit. And mark the happy results of 
this constitution of things. Wheat, in its native state, 
is but an inferior and straggling seed, and may be 
found now in this condition on the French and Italian 
shores of the Mediterranean, under the name ofcegilops; 
but by long years of patient and prudent cultivation, 
this has been brought to our present plump and prolific 
wheat. The same is true of potato, turnip, cabbage 
and many other useful vegetables. The crabapple, in 
its native state small and sour, by pruning, grafting, 
fertilizing the pistil of one tree with the pollen of 



THE THIRD DAY. 225 

another, and various other means, has been improved 
and brought to the present magnificent fruit of our 
orchards. By similar processes, the mountain ash, 
instead of its acid and unwholesome berries, has been 
made to yield the sweet and juicy pear; and from no 
better parentage than the acrid sloe have been derived 
our most luscious plums. Who can be blind to the 
wisdom, or insensible to the goodness displayed in this 
constitution of herbs and trees? 

Plants not only feed, but clothe us. A variety of 
cloths are fabricated from grasses, flags, and the inner 
bark of trees. But among the most useful plants for 
this purpose is the common flax. In the flax plant, 
the Creator has provided man with a material for 
thread and cloth of a most suitable and durable quality. 
And that our whole race might avail themselves of its 
benefits, He adapted its constitution to nearly every 
region of the globe. More valuable still, if possible, is 
the cotton plant. This also is widely disseminated — 
it flourishes in India, in Egypt, in North America, and 
in numerous other regions. Of the commercial value, 
or of the various and beautiful fabrics manufactured 
out of this article, I need not speak. Suffice it to say, 
that through the perfection of modern machinery it 
has become the great clothing staple of the world. 

We have now traversed the field of the vegetable 
creation, hastily it is true, yet what a multitude of 
beneficent designs, wonderful contrivances, and valua- 
ble productions have we seen ! And how replete with 

15 



226 THE THIRD DAY. 

lessons of wisdom are these all ! Many of these lessons 
have been pointed out in the course of the foregoing 
illustrations ; but a number of other and more general 
reflections, here at the close of our survey, naturally 
suggest themselves, and to a few of which we now 
desire the attention of the reader. 

REFLECTIONS. 

In vegetation we have the productions of Divine 
Chemistry ! Out of the same elements we here behold 
the utmost diversity of results. Ten thousand species 
of herbs, plants and trees, springing from the same soil, 
watered by the same showers, surrounded by the same 
atmosphere, and warmed by the same sun — yet how 
different in their qualities ! Some are acid and some 
are tasteless, some offering the richest nourishment and 
others the rankest poison, some are exhilarating and 
some stupefying, a few are as sweet as honey and many 
as bitter as the waters of Marah, some secreting oil 
while others are exuding gum, some sending forth 
odors that delight and some those that sicken and 
offend — yet all these are constituted of the same four 
or five primary elements, the diversity arising simply 
from the different proportions in which Infinite Skill 
has combined them. And herein is chemistry which 
man, astonishing as his progress has been in this 
science, can neither imitate nor approach. Man, 
indeed, can take a plant and separate these its ele- 
ments, and ascertain their exact proportions, but he 



THE THIRD DAY. 227 

can never recombine them so as to restore the plant. 
This is God's prerogative. 

" What a thought that was, when God thought of a 
tree !" exclaimed a philosopher. Yes, a tree, a single 
tree, originating in an atom seed, deriving its vitality 
from heaven, drawing its juices from the earth, feeding 
upon the air, eliciting its coloring from the sunbeam, 
and elaborating its several parts by the mysterious 
power of its own vitality — presents a concourse of con- 
trivances and properties and functions such as would 
never have entered the mind of man, or perhaps of any 
other intelligence, had not God set it in living form 
before him. What conceptions, then, shall we form, 
and what sentiments entertain of that Mind, who with 
unerring foresight, contrived a thousand, yea a 
hundred thousand differing trees and plants — differing 
in their size from the invisible lichen of the naked 
rock to the expanded banian tree of India, which 
proffers beneath its shade ample room for an army — 
differing in form from the creeping vine to the cedar 
of Libanus — differing in their age and duration from 
the ephemeral " flower of the grass" to the mighty 
adonsonia, hoary with the mosses of more than twenty 
centuries — differing in their juices from the nourishing 
grape to the pohon upas in their deadly valleys — 
differing in their aspect from the serpent cactus to the 
stately pine — differing in their habitations from the 
climbing lianas of the Guinea forests to the confervse 
of the silent pool — differing in the structure of their 



228 THE THIRD DAY. 

roots, in the form of their leaves, and in the texture of 
their stems — differing in their flowers, and seeds, and 
fruits — differing in the rapidity of their growth, and 
circulation,- and decay — differing in their qualities for 
absorbing and reflecting the heat of the sun — and, 
differing in a multitude of other particulars ! In the 
vegetable kingdom we behold a diversity all but end- 
less. In their creation, then, what countless ends to 
be secured. What an infinitude of influences, proper- 
ties and agencies to be determined. And what an 
infinitude, too, of weights, and measures, and propor- 
tions to be calculated. Yet in the Divine Mind, as in 
a vast storehouse of glorious ideas and designs, the 
plans of all were perfect and complete ere ever the 
omnipotent word to clothe the earth with verdure had 
gone forth. In that plan nothing was forgotten, noth- 
ing overlooked. No unforeseen difficulty arose, no 
part of the Divine purpose failed, no tree or plant 
or blade of grass came short of its designed perfection. 
When on the evening of this day, God's all-seeing eye 
surveyed the whole, He pronounced the work all very 
good. 

We have seen that every plant that springs out of 
the ground abounds, from root to leaf, with contri- 
vances of exquisite skill and nicety; and since every 
contrivance must have a contriver, and no contriver 
beneath the Deity could produce those of vegetation, it 
follows, therefore, that every individual plant and 
vegetable is the immediate work of God. They neither 



THE THIRD DAY. 229 

spin, nor weave, nor paint themselves. Wherever, 
then, we behold growing a tree, or plant, or bush, there 
God himself is patiently and unremittingly at work. 
He is present with every flower that springs up in the 
garden, or the field, or the wilderness, and gives to it 
with His own hand every leaf that adds to the grace of 
its fashion, and every tint that contributes to the beauty 
of its coloring. He presides over it from the first im- 
pulse of germination to the last moment of its fading 
existence. How natural, then, and how conclusive, 
too, is the inference, that if God thus cares for each 
blade of grass, and each flower of the field, much more 
will He care for those whom He hath created in His own 
image, redeemed by His own Son, and renewed and 
sanctified by His own Spirit. How sweetly does our 
Saviour deduce for us this comforting lesson — " Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil 
not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that 
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one 
of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the 
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the 
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, ye of little 
faith?" How simple the argument, how convincing 
the inference. 

Vegetation has its admonitions as well as comfortable 
assurances. The zizania, translated "tares" in our 
Lord's parable, was a species of bastard wheat, that, in 
the first stages of its growth, bore, a very close resem- 
blance to genuine wheat; hence the servants never 



230 THE THIRD DAY. 

discovered, or even suspected its existence, until the ear 
was formed and the fruit brought forth. Up to that 
point both had passed for wheat. So often among men : 
outwardly there may appear little or no difference be- 
tween the righteous and the wicked ; side by side they 
may move in the world and stand in the church, and 
all things may seem to come to both alike. But be- 
tween the two, as with the tares and wheat, there is 
an essential and germinal difference, which the eye of 
Omniscience, at the harvest time of souls, will not fail 
to detect. 

In the wheat-field is to be found, sometimes, another 
instructive phenomenon. I refer to a species of blasting, 
which farmers term bunt, but botanists ustilago fcetida, 
on account of the putrid and intolerable odor it exhales. 
This evil confines its ravages to the grain. Exter- 
nally, the infected ear exhibits no sign of disease, no 
rusty appearance or stunted growth ; on the contrary, 
it seems full as plump and green as the sound ears. 
Stealthily and secretly is the process of corruption 
accomplished; and not till the harvest is reaped, and 
the wheat is brought to the threshing-floor, is the dis- 
covery made, by the odor and color, that the produce is 
unfit for the master s use. Under this mask of health 
and soundness there is found nothing but black and 
foetid powder, nauseous and offensive. And such is the 
latent infection of sin. Men may appear fair and 
sound on the field of life — may pass through the world 
in robes of unspotted reputation, and even be adorned 



THE THIRD DAY. 231 

with the verdant blades of envied fame — but whose 
hearts, when laid open in the presence of God, will be 
found, like the foetid wheat, wholly corrupt, offensive in 
his sight, and a stench in his nostrils. 

But we need not seek for rare or out-of-the-way produc- 
tions to gather lessons — every green thing that springs 
out of the ground is a preacher to us, if we would but 
listen to its voice. All the leaves of the forest join in 
one general murmur to repeat in our ears the prophet's 
warning, " We all do fade as a leaf." And as we are so 
prone to thrust this truth out of mind, as comes on every 
fading Fall of the year, God spreads before us on plain 
and hillside a great parable, in which our own decay 
and death are pictorially represented in such a vivid and 
impressive manner, that he who runs may read, and he 
who reads must reflect and profit. 

" Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withered on the ground ; 
Another race the following age supplies ; 
They fall successive, and successive rise ; 
So generations in their course decay ; 
So flourish these when those have passed away." 

"With the leaves join the beauteous flowers, like 
whispering angels, to impress the same needful admo- 
nition upon the heart and mind of man. "As a flower 
of the field, so he flourisheth." And each flower along 
his path seems to look up and address him in language 
of its own, and say — 



232 THE THIRD DAY. 

" Child of the dust, like me you spring, 
A bright but evanescent thing ; 
Like me may be cut down to-day, 
And cast a worthless weed away." 

The grass also has its speech. It spreads itself 
before us like a living allegory, in which we may see 
our image and our end. It says, "All flesh is grass; in 
the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the 
evening it is cut down and withered." And when its 
beauties and benefits, and teachings all can avail man no 
more, the green grass reverently spreads itself as a robe 
over his slumbering form, and forsakes not even that 
upon which all others have turned their back — His 
grave — remaining there, in each bright blade, a per- 
petual type of a coming glorious resurrection ! 



®fe <Jf<mrih gag. 



The Sun, and the Moon, and the Stars are revealed. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 

Genesis 1]: 14-19.— And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of 
the heaven, to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, 
and for seasons, and for days, and years. And let them be for lights in 
the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth : and it was 
so. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, 
and the lesser light to rule the night ; He made the stars also. And 
God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the 
earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the 
light from the darkness : and God saw that it was good. And the 
evening and the morning were the fourth day. 

HE great works of this day, like those of the 
preceding days, are described, not scientifically, 
but as they would have appeared to an observer 
had one been present. The narrative of the 
sacred historian is scenic, or an account of things a 
they would have appeared to a human spectator. 

And God made two great lights. In the Hebrew 
Bible, the word here translated "made," is not the 
same as that rendered "created." It is a term fre- 
quently used in Scripture, and signifies constituted, or 
appointed. Thus we read, " The Lord made the Jordan 
a border between the tribes ;" that is, appointed the 
Jordan a boundary line between them. So here, God 
made two great lights to give light upon the earth ; that 
is, appointed these two great lights to give light upon the 

235 




236 THE FOURTH DAY. 

earth. It is not said that they were now created, but 
that now, having been revealed in their brightness for 
the first time after the chaotic darkness, they were con- 
stituted and appointed to be henceforth the lights of 
the world. These great luminaries were created, doubt- 
less, long ages before. They had given light to the 
earth through the vast pre- Adamite periods of its his- 
tory, and from the sun proceeded what degree of light 
prevailed upon its watery surface on the first, second 
and third days of this new creation. But up to this 
time the globe was encompassed by a sea of thick 
clouds, floating in the upper regions of the firmament ; 
so that the orbs of the sun and moon were altogether 
invisible, and only a portion of their rays struggled 
through, to create the feeble daylight. What was on 
this day done was the removing of this cloudy pall, the 
clearing of the firmament into a pure azure sky, so as 
to disclose the moon in her brightness, and the sun in 
his unobscured glory. And these luminaries, thus 
suddenly and for the first time breaking into full 
view, would appear to a spectator upon the earth as new 
creations ; and as such they are here described. They 
are said to be now " made," that is, appointed to give 
light upon the earth. 

That the sun was not created, or called into existence 
on this day, will be obvious on a moment's reflection. 
If we adopt what is called the Nebular Theory of the 
origin of the universe, then to suppose that the earth 
was created before the sun, is as absurd as to hold that 



TEE FOURTH DAY. 237 

the offspring was born before its parent ; for on that 
hypothesis the material of the earth was thrown off 
from the revolving mass of the sun. But setting that 
theory altogether aside, this fact remains unquestioned 
— that our ear*th is a member of the solar system, a 
globe, dependent, in common with the other planets, on 
the sun, held in its place and governed in its motion by 
the powerful attraction of the sun ; and, therefore, could 
no more have existed before the sun than the eyeballs 
before the head, or the branches of a tree before its 
roots. Hence, for this, together with the other reasons 
already stated, we say, that the work of the fourth day 
was not the absolute creation of the sun and moon, but 
the revealing of them in their brightness after their 
previous obscuration. 

Two great lights. The moon is called a great light, 
from its being apparently equal, or nearly equal in size 
to the sun ; or, perhaps, from the fact that it seems 
much larger than the stars. But here, again, things 
are described as they would appear to a spectator, and 
not as they were in reality; for the moon is among the 
very smallest of the heavenly bodies ; and, as compared 
with the sun or fixed stars, is but as a grain of mustard 
seed to a twenty-four inch globe. 

The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light 
to rule the night ; that is, each was to shed its light in 
its appointed season, for the benefit of the new-made 
world. 

And let them he for signs, and for seasons, and for 



238 THE FOURTH DAY. 

days, and years. These great luminaries by their 
ever-recurring revolutions, oscillations, and eclipses, 
would be signs to all living of the supporting and guid- 
ing power of God, signs to the mariner of his course on 
the trackless deep, signs to the husbanchnan for sowing 
his seed and gathering his harvests, signs to the 
traveller in tracing his path through the gloom of the 
forest, or over the wilds of the desert. And for seasons 
— by their steady progress in their appointed orbits 
they would bring on spring, summer, autumn and 
winter in their due rotation. And for days — by their 
established revolutions they would measure out the 
alternations of day and night. And for years — this 
grand division of time by which all succession of dura- 
tion is distinguished, they would also continue to 
describe and determine without cessation or mistake. 

The arrangement which thus measures out time by 
days, and months, and seasons, and years, is one of 
supreme wisdom and beneficence ; for these revolutions 
are the means by which we gain our knowledge of the 
flight of time. Our artificial time-keepers owe their 
conception to the apparent motion of the sun; our 
clocks and watches are but transcripts or miniature 
imitations of the celestial revolutions. And ingeni- 
ously contrived and admirably made as they* sometimes 
are, being like every other production of man imper- 
fect, they would soon be of little value if we could not 
regulate them by the same undeviating motions of the 
heavens. But for the celestial revolutions we should 



THE FOURTH DAY. 239 

have but a confused and imperfect idea of the lapse of 
time. If God had chosen to create our planet a world 
at rest, and illumined by a sun fixed and immovable in 
mid-heaven, the earth would have been a world with- 
out times or seasons. Spring, summer, autumn and 
winter would be unknown ; the alternation of day and 
night would have no existence ; and the lapse of time 
we now call a year, would glide away without giving 
us the least intimation of its beginning, or progress, or 
close. In fact, we should have no distinction or 
measure of time whatever, except in the succession of 
our irregular thoughts, or ever-fluctuating experiences. 
In pain or sorrow the space of a day would seem as 
long as a week ; and a week, exhilarated with joy or 
pleasure, would glide away as one day. In childhood 
the space of a month would appear as long as a year in 
manhood. So that no man could tell his age, or say 
at what period of life he had arrived. He would have 
no better idea of the flow of time, or of life, than a 
passenger below deck would have of the speed with 
which he sailed. Time, indeed, would pass away as 
swiftly and as uniformly as at present, but the universe 
would be without a dial plate to mark its progress, or 
to give man warning of his hasty passage to eternity. 
Compared with such a condition of things how admira- 
ble the present arrangement; now the rising and 
setting sun, the changing moon, and the revolving 
stars, by their uniform and perpetual revolutions, con- 
tinually apprise man of the swift flow of his appointed 



240 THE FOURTH DAY. 

time on the earth. These changes of days and years 
are to him the minute and hour hands of nature's 
clock-works ; and each as it completes its round tolls in 
the High Belfry of the heavens its own death and 
departure, thus giving him warning that his own is 
daily approaching. 

The creations brought before us for illustration in 
this day's history are the heavenly bodies — the sun, 
and moon, and stars — a field glorious as it is boundless. 



THE SUN. 
And God made the Greater Light to rule the day. 

The true character of the sun was learned by slow 
and laborious steps. Through a long series of ages, 
indeed until comparatively recent times, the common 
idea was that the earth was the centre of the universe, 
and that the sun, and moon, and stars, revolved around 
it. And most ingenious was the logic and complicated 
the theories put forth to account for their apparent 
motions on this supposition. To this task many of the 
ablest minds, whose names adorn the pages of history, 
devoted themselves with unwearied perseverance. 
Not less than twenty-six solid but transparent spheres 
were conceived to revolve within one another, carrying 
along with them the sun, the moon, the planets, and 
the fixed stars, at different velocities. This conception 
was carried to the meridian of its glory in the first 



242 THE FOURTH DAY. 

century of the Christian era, by Ptolemy, a great 
mathematician of Alexandria, and after him was named 
the Ptolemaic System. This was the generally 
accepted theory for many centuries after the death of 
Ptolemy. At length the true idea that the sun was 
the real and immovable centre dawned upon the mind 
of Copernicus, whose views were embraced and ad- 
vanced by Galileo, Kepler, and others, and were 
finally perfected and established by the splendid dis- 
coveries of Sir Isaac Newton, who, in the year 1687, 
presented the world with a convincing demonstration, 
that not only our globe, but also a vast and magnificent 
system of others, revolved at different distances and 
with different velocities around the sun as their fixed 
and common centre. 

The position and relation of the sun being now 
established, his distance from us next became a subject 
of intense study. And it was soon found to be re- 
moved from the earth no less than 95,000,000 
miles. Recent calculations, however, make his 
mean distance to be 92,000,000 miles. Now this 
is a space so vast as to be altogether beyond the 
power of the mind to grasp, except as it is com- 
pared with some more familiar measurements. He 
who has travelled round the earth is regarded as 
having accomplished a journey of prodigious length ; 
but to pass over a distance equal to that of the earth 
from the sun, he would have to repeat that journey 
3800 times. Or, take another comparison. If a 



THE FOURTH DAY. 243 

man on the day Columbus discovered America 
had started, we will suppose, by some aerial convey- 
ance for the sun, and travelled at the daily rate 
of 500 miles, he would not have completed his 
journey at this day, but would have to continue his 
progress for 120 years yet to come, before he would 
alight on that resplendent globe. 

The next point to be determined was the size of the 
sun. This, also, was found to be on an equally enor- 
mous scale, his diameter being 882,000 miles, or more 
than 111 times that of the earth, and his circumference 
2,764,000 miles. But these are dimensions too great 
for us to form any clear or definite idea of them. Let 
us again resort to comparison. The globe we inhabit is 
an immense ball, filling a circle, nearly 8,000 miles in 
diameter ; around us sweeps the moon, describing a far 
mightier circle, at the distance of 240,000 miles ; now 
let us suppose the earth to be enlarged until it com- 
pletely fills this circle of the moon, and what a stupen- 
dous globe it would then be. Yet to be equal to the 
sun it would have to swell out on every side 200,000 
miles even beyond this orbit ! Or, to change the sup- 
position — " Were the sun a hollow sphere, perforated by 
a thousand openings to admit the twinkling of a luminous 
atmosphere without, then a globe as large as the earth 
might be placed at the centre, with a satellite as large 
as the moon, and at the same distance from it as she is 
from the earth ; and there would be presented to the 
eye of a spectator on the interior globe, a universe as 



244 THE FOURTH DAY. 

extensive as the whole creation was conceived to be in 
the infancy of astronomy, and as splendid as the 
heavens appear at present to the uninstructed gazer !" 
The materials composing the body of the sun, if divided 
and moulded, would form no less than 1,384,000 globes 
equal in size to the earth. And its mass is more than 
500 times greater than that of all the planets and 
satellites put together. Such is the magnitude of the 
greater light. See Fig., page 241. 

Our knowledge of the constitution, or real nature of 
the sun, is still quite limited and defective. He is now 
generally considered to be an incandescent body, encom- 
passed by two atmospheres, the inner of which is be- 
lieved to be non-luminous, while the outer one floats 
over it, and is highly luminous, and forms the bright 
disk of the sun. This luminous atmosphere seems to 
be all ablaze, and in constant agitation, as if with 
mountain waves of living fire. Recent experiments 
made with the Prismatic Spectrum have revealed the 
striking fact, that several of the metals found in the 
globe we inhabit, enter also into the composition of the 
sun; among these are iron, magnesium, sodium, chro- 
mium and nickel. This stupendous and flaming orb, 
like all the planets which it lights up, rotates upon its 
axis, its period being 23 ds., 7 hrs., 48 min. 

When viewed by the unaided eye, the sun presents a 
clear surface, without spot or wrinkle ; but if we look 
upon it through a telescope, we shall discover on its 
disk a variety of phenomena. The most notable of these 





SPOTS AND FACULiE OF THE SUN. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 245 

are certain black spots that prevail in its middle or equa- 
torial zone. At times its disk is almost, if not altogether, 
clear of them ; then, again, fifty or one hundred may be 
seen at once. When watched closely from day to day, 
or from hour to hour, they appear to enlarge or con- 
tract, to change their forms, and at length to disappear 
altogether, or to break out anew in parts of the surface 
where none were before. Many of them are of immense 
extent, being five, ten, or twenty thousand miles in di- 
ameter. Spots of 2,000 miles extent have been observed 
to vanish in twenty-four hours ; and one measuring 
45,000 miles across has been seen to close up in six 
weeks, thus contracting its area at the rate of more 
than 35,000,000 square miles per day. On the other 
hand, spots larger than the circumference of the earth 
have been formed in forty-eight hours, where not a trace 
of one was visible before. It has been ascertained that 
the prevalence of these extraordinary spots is periodical ; 
that is, from minimum to minimum, or from the time 
of the least number of them to the time of the least 
number is 111 years, being exactly nine periods to a 
century. As to their nature, it is supposed that they 
are openings or ruptures in the strata of the solar 
atmosphere, produced by some prodigious agitations 
or storms therein ; and that the dark nucleus is the 
shaded body of the sun itself, as seen through the 
aperture. 

In the neighborhood of the above described spots, 
large spaces of the surface are often observed to be 



246 THE FOURTH DAY. 

covered with strongly marked curved or branching 
streaks, more luminous than the rest, called faculce. 
These are regarded with probability as the ridges of 
immense waves in the luminous atmosphere, and indi- 
cate violent agitation in their vicinity. In 1859, two 
intensely luminous bodies, resembling vast clouds, far 
more brilliant than the general surface of the sun, sud- 
denly burst into view, and after travelling, side by side, 
a distance of 35,000 miles, disappeared almost instan- 
taneously. They were seen only for about five 
minutes. 

During total eclipses of the sun, another wonderful 
phenomenon has repeatedly been observed, in the form 
of enormous flames, shooting upward above the solar 
surface to the appalling height of thirty or forty 
thousand miles ; these are sometimes rose-colored, 
sometimes white, and sometimes red ; and they are 
supposed to prove the existence of a rarified atmos- 
phere outside and above the luminous envelope or 
photosphere. 

The sun is the centre of gravitation in the planetary 
system. Gravitation is a power or property with which 
all matter is endued. It acts according to the same 
laws between the most minute particles, and the most 
stupendous bodies. Always and everywhere its force 
is in proportion to the mass, but diminishes inversely 
as the square of the distance between attracting bodies 
increases. It is transmitted instantaneously from one 
body to another, and it acts equally upon bodies in a 



THE FOURTH DAY. 247 

state of rest, and upon those that are in swiftest motion. 
It is gravitation that holds together the particles that 
compose a dew-drop or a pebble, and it is the same 
mysterious power that binds the materials of the earth 
in one solid globe. It is gravitation that brings down 
the rain from the clouds and the avalanche from the 
Alpine summit. What we familiarly call weight is the 
measure of gravitation. A man's weight is the amount 
of force with which the earth attracts him to its sur- 
face. But for gravitation our dwellings and ourselves 
would be flung from the earth's circumference never to 
return by its rapid rotation on its axis, like the mud 
and water from a carriage wheel in rapid motion. 
And it is by this all-pervading power, emanating from 
the sun, that the earth and the other planets are held 
in their respective orbits, while moving with incon- 
ceivable velocities. 

The revolutions of the planets are effected and 
governed by two antagonistic forces — gravitation and 
centrifugal impulse; the operation of these may be 
made plain by a familiar illustration. If a leaden ball 
be whirled round at the end of a string, it will stretch 
the string by its centrifugal force, or tendency to fly 
from the centre; that force will be increased as the 
speed of rotation is increased ; and the velocity may be 
so accelerated as to overcome the strength of the string 
and break it. The instant that takes place the ball 
forsakes its circular course, and flies off in a tangent, 
or straight line. But let us suppose the velocity to be 



248 THE FOURTH DAY. 

increased only just up to the limit of the string's 
capacity ; then the centrifugal force and the strength 
of the string are equal, or evenly balanced, and the 
ball goes round and round. Now this is precisely the 
condition of the earth and the planets as they move in 
their orbits. Were the progressive motion of the earth 
suddenly to cease at any point of its orbit, that moment, 
under the force of the sun's gravitation, it would begin 
to descend towards him, and in sixty-four and a half 
days would fall with a crash upon his surface. On the 
other hand, were gravitation to cease, that instant our 
globe would forsake her circular path, and like the ball 
rush forward in a straight course into the depths of 
space. The gravitation of the sun performs the office 
of the string, drawing it inward at every instant of its 
progress, and thus compelling it to pursue a circular 
course. And the attractive force thus exerted upon it 
is exactly equal to the centrifugal force at every point 
of its orbit. And calculation proves this attractive 
force to be enormous. Were gravitation suspended, 
and our globe, moving as it does, at the rate of 68,000 
miles an hour, to be retained in its orbit by a cable 
attached to the pole of the sun, we will say, that cable 
would have to be of a strength sufficient to suspend a 
weight equal to 1,356,968,450,000,000,000 tons— a 
weight and strength transcending all human com- 
prehension ! Such is the tremendous power exerted 
by the sun upon our globe, without any visible connec- 
tion, and at the distance of 95,000,000 of miles. Nor 



THE FOURTH DAY. 249 

does his power end here ; Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, 
vastly larger spheres, and revolving at distances im- 
mensely greater, are bound and guided with equal 
firmness by this mysterious influence. And even 
Neptune, rolling onward its lonely way in the far and 
dim immensity of our system, at the distance of 
2,862,000,000 of miles, is ruled by it in its appointed 
path, as regularly and certainly as Mercury that revolves 
forever within his blaze. 

The sun is the only self-luminous orb in the whole 
system to which it belongs — He is the light thereof. 
The planets and satellites all shine by light borrowed 
from him ; our own moon owes her silvery lustre to his 
radiations. The sun pours off light from his surface 
continually in all directions far into the depths of space; 
and its intensity, like that of gravitation, diminishes 
inversely as the squares of distances. 

Two different theories have been proposed to explain 
the production of light. Newton, Laplace, and others, 
suppose light to consist of luminous particles darted 
from the surface of the sun in all directions ; that these 
infinitely minute particles are influenced by the repel- 
ling and attracting forces of matter, and thus turned 
back or reflected from their surfaces in some cases, and 
absorbed into their interstitial spaces in others. But 
this theory has fallen rather into the back-ground, and 
another called the Undulatory Theory has been intro- 
duced, as accounting for certain phenomena more satis- 
factorily than the former. According to this, light 



250 THE FOURTH DAY. 

consists in the waves or vibrations excited by the sun, 
or other luminous bodies, in a medium called the 
Luminiferous Ether, which is supposed to fill all trans- 
parent bodies, and to extend to the remotest distances 
in space. Thus, according to one hypothesis, luminous 
particles are supposed actually to come from the sun to 
the earth ; and according to the other, the sun only 
occasions a disturbance or waves in the ether, which 
extend with great rapidity. Whichever of these theo- 
ries we adopt, inferences equally marvellous follow. 
According to the first, how wonderful, almost incredible, 
that innumerable myriads of material particles are 
launched through space from the sun, and from all 
luminous and reflecting bodies upon the earth, in all 
possible directions, yet without interference or produc- 
ing the least confusion of vision. And according to 
the second, equally wonderful is it, that waves or 
undulations of the elastic ether are circling in all direc- 
tions from ten thousand centres without being defaced 
or obliterated. Waves generated by fifty or a hundred 
pebbles scattered at one and the same time upon the 
bosom of the lake, would mutually oppose, cross, and 
break up one another into a mere confusion of ripples. 
And even vibrations in the atmosphere, produced by 
sounds or voices from scores of sources at once, become 
utterly undistinguishable to the acutest ear. Not so 
with the medium of vision ; the radiant vehicles of 
light (whatever they be) are infallible in their progress 
— they ever carry and imprint the messages of the uni- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 251 

verse, great or small, with unfailing accuracy and dis- 
tinctness. 

Another remarkable fact connected with light is the 
inconceivable velocity with which it travels. This is 
no hypothesis merely, but a matter of observation. 
This has been ascertained by comparing the calculated 
and actual time of the eclipses of the satellites of 
Jupiter with the time at which they appear to the eye, 
when the earth was at the nearest and farthest points 
of its orbit from that planet. At the farthest point it 
was observed that they uniformly appeared 16' 26.6" 
later than at the nearest point ; hence it appeared that 
light must have occupied this length of time in travel- 
ling across the earth's orbit, or 190,000,000 of miles. 
Hence the velocity of light is found to be 192,000 miles 
per second. 

The sun's light presents us with another marvellous 
class of facts in the production of colors. It was long 
supposed that the sun's light was perfectly white ; but 
passing a pencil of sunlight through a glass prism, it 
is found to be made up of all the colors in the rainbow 
— red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. 
According to Newton's theory, pure light is a mixture 
of all these seven in certain proportions. If the red, 
for instance, is removed, then the mixture of all the 
others will be blue. If the blue is taken away, the 
mixture of the others will be yellow ; and so of all the 
rest. Now the colors of all natural bodies, he tells us, 
" have no other origin than this, that they are variously 



252 THE FOURTH DAY. 

qualified to reflect one sort of light in greater plenty 
than others." Accordingly when the sun's white light 
falls upon the scarlet geranium, it absorbs the other six 
colors, and reflects to the eye only the red rays. When 
the light falls upon the blue flower, it throws back 
upon the vision the blue rays only, while it absorbs all 
the rest. When the sunbeams fall upon the petals of 
the pure white lily, they reflect all the rays. And 
when the light falls upon a black object, it absorbs all 
the rays, reflecting none of them. 

The Undulatory Theory accounts for the various 
colors in a different way. This supposes the sur- 
faces of objects to possess properties that impart different 
vibrations to the luminous ether. If a body sends back 
white light, unchanged in its vibrations, it appears 
white. If the surface has the property of altering the 
vibrations to that which is calculated to produce red- 
ness, the result is a red color ; and so of all the others ; 
while the annihilation of the undulations produces 
blackness. According to this theory, the rate and the 
length of the undulation determine the color, a different 
sensation being thereby produced upon the optic nerve. 
The analytical examination of this subject shows, that 
to produce red color y the ray of light must give 37,640 
undulations in an inch, and 458,000,000,000,000 in a 
second. Yellow requires 44,000 in an inch, and 
535,000,000,000,000 in a second. Blue requires 
51,110 in an inch, and 622,000,000,000,000 in a 
second. " Such results are among the highest refine- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 253 

ments of science, and when contrasted with the most 
sublime efforts of the imagination appear immeasurably 
superior to them." 

A sunbeam is a mysterious creation ; science has 
proved that no substance can be exposed to it without 
undergoing a change. In it have been discovered, be- 
side the properties that impart light and color, certain 
dark rays, by whose magic, though invisible pencil, can 
be delineated in a moment every scene of earth, and 
every form of life. This great secret, after long study 
and many experiments, having been wrested from the 
Lord of Day, the lover of nature may now, by this helio- 
graphic art, record her arrangements, copy her beauties, 
and delineate her most delicate features. By the 
agency of the very rays that give life and brilliancy to 
the laughing eye and blushing cheek, we can trace the 
outlines of the features we admire, and stamp on per- 
ennial leaves the hallowed scenes of family and home ! 

To the light of the sun belong many other interesting 
properties, such as those connected with its polarization, 
refraction and radiation ; with animal and vegetable 
life; with heat and electricity; with magnetism and 
various other agencies of nature ; of these our limits 
forbid us to speak in particular. But after all the pro- 
tracted study, and endlessly varied experiments of the 
most gifted minds upon these various properties and 
laws of light, of the principle itself we know nothing. 
"The solar beam has been tortured through prismatic 
glasses and natural crystals. Every chemical agent 



254 TIIE FOURTH DAY. 

has been tried upon it, every electrical force in the most 
excited state brought to bear upon its operations, with 
a view to the discovery of the most refined of earthly 
agencies ; but it has passed through every trial without 
revealing its secrets ; and even the effects which it pro- 
duces in its path are unexplained problems still to tax 
the intellect of man."* 

Though ignorant of the essential nature of light, we 
well know that we are constantly partakers of a thou- 
sand benefits that flow from its great source. The rays 
of the sun are the ultimate cause of almost every motion 
which takes place on the surface of the earth. By its 
heat are produced all winds, and all those electrical dis- 
turbances we call thunder-storms, which purify the atmos- 
phere we breathe. By its heat, also, the waters of the 
ocean ascend in vapors, travel through the air, descend 
in showers, irrigate the land, supply the springs, and form 
the rivers. By its vivifying action vegetables are 
enabled to draw their support from the soil and the 
air, to put forth their blossoms, to ripen their fruits, 
and to become, in their time, the support of man and 
beast. Through its illuminating power we enjoy the 
inestimable advantages, and receive all the undefmable 
pleasures of vision. Every animal, every plant, owns 
that life and health are due to its light, and all living 
things rejoice in its presence. 

* Poetry of Science, p. 124. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 255 

REFLECTIONS. 

From the creation true philosophy, as well as 
religion, ever leads us to the Creator ; and nowhere is 
this transition of our thoughts easier or more natural 
than from the contemplation of the Greater Light. 
The vastness of his dimensions, the splendor of his 
aspect, the rotation of his majestic circumference, his 
potent attraction, the mighty forces in operation upon 
his surface, his awe-inspiring flames, and the mysterious 
but beneficent influences of his light — all present phe- 
nomena that at once amaze and overwhelm the mind ! 
He who can, with any degree of intelligence, contem- 
plate this glorious orb of day, and daily enjoy its be- 
nign and life-giving influences, and yet feel no sense of 
gratitude, no feeling of devotion awakened within his 
breast, surely can of right claim no higher place in the 
scale of animated beings than that of those " meaner 
things," that, " with brute unconscious gaze," wander 
among the works of God. Among all the visible ob- 
jects of creation, there is none whose nature and func- 
tions are so wonderful — none whose glories are so much 
to be admired — none whose beneficent influences are so 
wide-spread, as the Sun ; none where the eternal Power 
and Godhead are more clearly seen ; none that more 
impressively call us to render unto the Lord the glory 
due unto his name. 

In the Sun we have the most worthy emblem that the 
visible universe presents of Him, who, with the word of 



256 THE FOURTH DAY. 

his power, kindled up its glories, and with the strength 
of his right hand established it in the heavens. And 
the analogies between the Sun of nature and the Sun 
of Righteousness are both striking and instructive. 

In the opening scene of the fourth day we have a fine 
image of the advent of the Redeemer of men. On that 
morning the sun burst forth in its unveiled glories, irra- 
diating the new-made earth, and revealing upon its face 
scenes of loveliness and grandeur which could neither 
be seen nor known before. So arose the Sun of Right- 
eousness upon the world of mankind, an object as won- 
derful and as new in his person, and character, and 
office, as the great orb of day when it first came forth 
to run the circuit of the heavens — pouring a flood of 
light from above upon benighted humanity, and opening 
up to them views of truth, happiness and immortality, 
such as the world had never known or heard before ; 
and, like the solar light, while revealing all else, re- 
maining Himself a Glorious Mystery. 

As the natural Sun is the centre of the system of 
creation, so the Sun of Righteousness is the vital centre 
of revealed truth and religion. He is the heavenly orb 
that illumines and animates every page throughout the 
whole circle of Revelation ; and to Him point from every 
quarter, like the rosy fingers of the morning, all the 
types and prophecies, all the doctrines and sacraments, 
as to their radiating focus. He is the light, the life, 
and the bond of union that constitute them into one 
gracious and harmonious whole. 





MOON'S SURFACE. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 257 

As the sun shines by his own light, so the Son of God 
poured the light of truth upon men from the fountain 
of His own mind. The instructions he imparted were 
neither derived from tradition nor borrowed from philos- 
ophy. He was a self-luminous and Divine Orb, risen 
upon the darkness of the world, shedding new light, 
and revealing new truths to bewildered humanity. 

As in the pure sunbeam we have combined all the 
colors of the rainbow in their due proportions, so in 
Christ we find all virtues and graces harmoniously 
blended in one perfect character. In Him we behold 
every principle, every affection, every impulse, in per- 
fect equipoise. 

As the sunlight, on whatever foulness or corruption 
it may fall, remains uncontaminated, so the Son of man, 
amid all the temptations, guilt and depravity of earth, 
continued pure and unspotted. From every company and 
from every scene He emerged sinless and immaculate ; 
and re-entered the portals of heaven pure as when He 
left the bosom of the Father. 

As the light of the sun is unlimited and inexhaustible, 
so also are the healing and saving beams of the Sun of 
Kighteousness. As a thousand eyes turned toward the 
natural sun, at the same instant, are as fully and per- 
fectly enlightened as if but a solitary eye beheld it ; so 
if a thousand, or a thousand millions of perishing sin- 
ners look to the Almighty Saviour, in one moment, He 
is infinitely sufficient to hear and save them all. His 
power to save 

17 



258 THE FOURTH DAY. 

" Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

As the sun's law of gravitation extends over the 
whole solar system, so the Law of love, proceeding from 
the Sun of Righteousness, extends its authority over 
the whole family of man. Gravitation exercises its 
dominion alike over the mightiest planet and the 
minutest asteroid ; so the Divine law of love, with equal 
hand, imposes its obligations upon kings, and peasants 
and beggars ; its authority is no less binding in courts 
and cabinets than in churches and families ; its voice is 
to be heeded no less by the diplomatist sent to foreign 
realms, than by the preacher who remains among his 
flock at home. To all it speaks alike, in the name 
and in the words of its Divine Original, "Love one 
another, as I have loved you." 



THE MOON. 

And God made the Lesser Light to rule the night. 

The moon is our nearest neighbor in the heavens, 
and is, in fact, an appendage of our world. In herself 
she is a perfectly dark sphere, like that upon which we 
tread. She shines by borrowed light, and becomes 
visible simply by the rays of the sun falling upon her 
disk, which, according to the ordinance of the fourth 
day, she reflects to enlighten the earth. The sun 
always illumines one-half of her surface ; but that en- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 259 

lightened side is so situated at different points of her 
orbit, that we see only a less or greater part of it ; and 
hence arises her ever-varying aspect. 

The moon is one of those heavenly bodies which 
astronomers call satellites, or secondary planets, and 
revolves around the earth as a centre, accompanying it 
at the same time in its annual course round the sun. 
The moon completes her circuit round the earth in 
27 ds. 7 hrs. 43 min. 11 sec. ; but while she has been 
accomplishing it, the earth has been moving uniformly 
on in her annual path, at the rate of 68,000 miles 
per hour; and to overtake her, so as to appear pre- 
cisely at the same point in the heavens as she did at 
the commencement of her circuit, she has to travel on 
for 2 ds. 5 hrs. 52 sec. longer. So that what is called 
a lunar month, or the time from one new moon to 
another, is 29 ds. 12 hrs. 44 min. 3 sec. 

While the moon thus revolves round the earth, she 
also rotates on her axis in precisely the same period ; 
and by this arrangement she keeps the same side of her 
sphere always towards the earth. This may be easily 
explained. Let a lamp standing in the centre of a 
circular table represent the earth, and let a person move 
once round the table, always directly facing the lamp, 
and he will find that, in going round, he has faced every 
point of the compass, or made a complete rotation on 
his axis, while his face, like the moon's, has been all 
the while toward the lamp. 

Thus the moon is found to have a triple motion, be- 



260 THE FOURTH DAY. 

sides certain other oscillations of too abstruse a nature 
to be introduced here, which altogether render her 
annual career a most wonderful and complicated gyra- 
tion indeed. And yet she has been thus pursuing her 
appointed rounds from year to year, and from century 
to century, fulfilling her commission as the Ruler of the 
Night, without failure or faltering, ever since the 
morning of time. 

Moving in an elliptical orbit, like all the other celes- 
tial spheres, the moon is sometimes nearer and some- 
times further; her mean distance from the earth is 
238,793 miles. This separates her from us by a vast 
interval, it is true ; yet a hundred cables, such as that 
of the Atlantic Telegraph, if spliced together, would 
reach from the earth to the moon. 

The moons diameter is 2,160 miles, consequently 
her bulk is only one-forty-fifth part that of the earth. 
The difference in size between the two globes, therefore, 
is great. Were a traveller to start at mid-day, and 
move along the equator of the moon at the rate of 
ten miles an hour, he would keep the sun at his 
noon point over his head while he went completely 
round her, which he would accomplish in about four 
weeks. To perform the same feat on our globe he 
would have to travel at a rate of more than 1,000 
miles an hour. 

The optical instruments of the present day have 
brought the moon near enough to be surveyed with 
great accuracy and satisfaction. Looking through the 



THE FOURTH DAY. 261 

great Rosse telescope, "the eye is directed to the 
heavens, having a pupil of six feet diameter, with the 
most complete optical structure ; and thus the quantity 
of light which the eye receives from any point of the 
heavens is augmented, it may be, 50,000 times. The 
rising moon is seen from the observatory with the same 
increase of size and light, as if her solid globe, 2,000 
miles in diameter, retaining all its illumination, really 
rested upon the summits of the Alps to be gazed at by 
the naked eye." Scientific ingenuity has gone further. 
Two independent photographs of the moon, taken at a 
certain epoch in two different lunations, have been 
successfully obtained; which, when placed in the 
magic stereoscope, present her to the eye in her true 
spherical form, with her physical features standing out 
in all their actual reality. " Nothing," says Sir John 
Herschell, " can surpass the impression of real corporeal 
form thus conveyed by these pictures, the production 
of which is one of the most remarkable and unexpected 
triumphs of scientific art." 

When viewed through a powerful telescope, the 
moon presents a scenery of plains and mountains, 
peaks and caverns, hanging precipices, and insulated 
rocks over her whole extent. No seas, or any certain 
indications of water in any form, have been discovered 
on her surface. Many of her plains are of a peculiar 
character, being surrounded by a circular ridge of 
mountains, like a wall or rampart. Out of the midst 
of many of these walled-in plains spring isolated and 



262 THE FOURTH DAY. 

precipitous mountains, like tapering obelisks, reaching 
a height in some instances of several miles, and throw- 
ing a shadow on the side opposite the sun, which may 
be as • distinctly seen as the shadow of a house in the 
street. Another singular feature of the moon's surface 
consists in vast circular cavities of all dimensions up to 
one hundred miles in diameter, and down to three 
miles in depth. These abound everywhere — surmount- 
ing the highest mountains, piercing the deepest valleys, 
and checkering the monotony of the plains. The 
mountains of our satellite are not only very numerous, 
but many of them also very lofty, much more so in 
proportion to its size than the mountains of the earth. 
The highest of the lunar mountains reaches an eleva- 
tion of 26,691 feet. 

The surface of the moon has been accurately mapped, 
and to its principal plains and mountains have been 
given names as to those of our own globe. And in 
order to gain a clearer idea of lunar scenery, let us now 
survey one or two of these a little more closely. 
Among the more notable of her mountains is one that 
has received the name Tycho. " Let us in imagination 
stand for a few moments within its arena. Around us 
on every side rises a mighty wall of rock, forming a 
circle of fifty-four miles diameter. Looking up from 
the interior plain, it is 17,000 feet of clear precipice 
before the eye rests. Before us extends a plain for 
about twenty-five miles, interrupted, however, by con- 
centric ridges of rocky mountains or barriers, that en- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 263 

circle in irregular and broken masses of fearful magni- 
tude and height the awful centre, whence, from a black 
and profound gulf, that opens its mighty jaws, springs 
a huge dark mountain, whose steep and pointed sum- 
mit, higher than the lofty Snowdon, shoots upward for 
above 4,000 feet in sheer precipice from the plain. 
The centre, this, of a terrible convulsion that once 
shook the very heart and substance of our satellite."* 

Let us look at another of these annular mountains — 
Eratosthenes. At the extremity of a remarkable range 
is a vast crater, thirty-seven miles in diameter; the 
interior of this is almost as even and uniform as a regu- 
larly laid stone wall; the bottom is a plain, which, 
however, is not on a level with the general surface out- 
side, but lies 3,000 feet below it. The edge of the 
crater being raised 3,000 feet above the exterior sur- 
face, it follows, therefore, that the interior descent is 
6,000 feet. From the centre of this awful pit rises a 
stupendous cone-like mountain, full 10,000 feet above 
the edge of the crater, making its entire altitude 16,000 
feet ; so that its summit is brightly lighted by the sun- 
beams long before its base, or any portion of the sur- 
rounding plain, has received a ray. 

The moon has her plains as well as mountains. In 
the northeast quarter of her hemisphere is a plain 
called Mare Imbrium, or Sea of Showers, though no 
shower has ever fallen upon it. Making thought our 
chariot, let us take our flight and visit it, taking with 

* Crampton. 



264 THE FOURTH DAY. 

us Mr. Crampton for our guide. "Casting our eyes 
around us, what do we see? A boundless desert, 
stretching away as far as the eye can reach on every 
side, save in one or two points, where a chain of lofty 
mountains can be perceived, whose brilliant pointed 
summits, glittering in the sunbeams, just appear on the 
distant horizon. The light and heat are of a tropical 
fierceness, and there is not a cloud afloat to shield us. 
An infinite number of circular pits of all depths and 
diameters are scattered over the plain. Above, the sky 
is black, out of which the sun gleams like a red-hot 
ball ; and the stars sparkle like diamonds, for no atmos- 
phere such as ours exists, to give by its refractive and 
reflecting powers the delicious blue to its heavens, and 
the softened shade to its landscape. The lights and 
shades are indented upon its features deep and dark, 
or intensely bright ; no softening away in the distance ; 
no gentle and beautiful perspective ; no lovely twilight 
morning or evening stealing over or away from the 
scene. All the shadows are abrupt and sudden ; all the 
outlines sharp, clear ; objects appearing startlingly near 
even when really distant. No sound follows our foot- 
fall, or is ever heard in that silent place, for there is no 
atmosphere to conduct it; no fresh breeze blows on its 
mountain tops, sighs through its burning deserts, rus- 
tles through the brilliant green of forests, or waves over 
grassy meadows ; the silence of death broods over its 
arid wastes and rocky shores, against which no tides 
or billows break." 



THE FOURTH DAY. 265 

The seasons and climate of the moon are peculiar. 
"Whatever of summer and winter she may have, must 
result from her rotation on her axis, the period of 
which is only a short month. Hence the length of her 
day is equal to fifteen of our days, and her night is the 
same; consequently, she has but twelve days and 
twelve nights in the year. To relieve her tedious 
nights she enjoys a splendid moonlight, the earth per- 
forming exactly the same office, and exhibiting a simi- 
lar change of phases, only being thirteen times larger 
to her, that she does to us. No indications of an 
atmosphere have been detected about her ; if she has 
any, it must be one of extreme tenuity, for it is demon- 
strable that its density cannot be equal to a two- 
thousandth part of that of the earth. " Hence the 
climate of the moon," says Sir John Herschell, " must 
be very extraordinary ; the alternation being that of 
unmitigated and burning sunshine fiercer than an equa- 
torial noon, continued for a whole fortnight ; and the 
keenest severity of frost, far exceeding that of our polar 
winters, for an equal time." 

The moon presents us with another interesting class 
of phenomena in the eclipses which she sometimes 
occasions to the sun, and sometimes undergoes herself. 
An eclipse of the sun is caused by the moon in her 
revolution round the earth coming between us and the 
sun, and being a dark body, she appears as a black spot 
on the sun's surface, covering a less or greater portion, 
or even in some conjunctures, the whole of his disk. 




MOON'S ANNUAL PATH. 



^ .^^=1^*^^==^^^^^^-^-^^^=-^^^-^-^ 







iff H 




ECLIPSES OF THE SUN AND MOON. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 2G7 

An eclipse of the sun can take place only at the time 
of the new moon. The shadow of the moon, which on 
such occasions falls upon the earth, covers only a small 
portion of its surface, not being at any time more than 
one hundred and eighty miles in diameter. This 
shadow travels the surface of our globe at the rate of 
2,200 miles per hour ; so that the sun is never totally 
obscured, at any particular point, for more than four 
minutes. 

An eclipse of the moon is produced by the interposi- 
tion of the earth between her and the sun. The earth 
being a dark globe, and enlightened by the sun, casts 
a shadow in the form of a cone on the opposite side, 
which reaches to the distance of 840,000 miles, or three 
and a half times the distance of the moon's orbit ; and 
when the moon happens to pass through this shadow, 
she is deprived of the sun's light, and eclipsed. This 
can take place only at the full moon. And as this 
shadow is about 6,000 miles broad at the distance of 
the moon, her passage through it, when central, occu- 
pies from beginning to end about 3 hrs. and 45 min. — 
All eclipses both of the sun and moon recur within a 
period of eighteen years and ten days. 

Solar and lunar eclipses, while presenting striking 
exhibitions of the workings of the celestial machinery, 
are also occurrences of great advantage and utility. 
They plainly show us that the moon is an opaque body 
— that when we cannot see her she really exists — that 
when we behold her only as a slender crescent the 



268 THE FOURTH DAY. 

whole globular body is there — that the earth is of a 
spherical figure, as its shadow falling on the face of the 
moon is always circular — that the sun is larger than 
the earth, and the earth larger than the moon. Lunar 
eclipses are also of importance to determine with accu- 
racy the longitude of particular places on the face of 
the earth. 

Eclipses have also served to establish the dates of 
many events recorded in ancient history. The occur- 
rence and character of an eclipse, together with the 
locality at which it was observed, in connection with 
any memorable event of antiquity, being given, the 
astronomer by calculating backwards, can read off by 
the clock-works of the universe the precise time when 
the event took place. The celebrated eclipse men- 
tioned by Herodotus, which, by its ominous appearance, 
caused the suspension of the battle between the Medes 
and Lydians, followed by a treaty of peace, has been 
ascertained to have occurred in the 585th year B. C. ; 
and not only that, but the course of the moon's shadow 
over the earth's surface, being also traced by the same 
calculation, determined the field of the impending con- 
flict to have been at the mouth of the river Halys. 
Another eclipse mentioned by Thucydides, as having 
occurred on the afternoon of a summer's day, in the 
first year of the Peloponesian war, is found to have 
happened, August 3d, B. C. 413, and to have passed 
over the city of Athens. Xenophon relates that during 
the siege of Larissa, an eclipse of the sun took place, 



THE FOURTH DAY. 269 

which produced a panic among its Median defenders, 
of which the Persians took advantage and captured the 
city ; and astronomical calculation has fixed the event 
on the 15th of August, B. C. 310 ; and that the shadow 
being on this occasion only twenty-five miles in diame- 
ter passed centrally over the place. 

Two blocks of stone were recently exhumed from the 
ruins of Nineveh, and brought to the British Museum ; 
one containing a list of kings of Assyria, and the other 
a list of dates ; but there was no known connection 
between them. Eawlinson, the great decipherer, how- 
ever, has put the two together, and found, in fact, that 
they are complementary parts of the same stone, fitting 
into each other exactly, and giving thus a complete 
and exact record of the Assyrian empire for a period of 
two hundred and forty-three years. Among the facts 
recorded on these stones is an eclipse of the sun, which 
is distinctly and with particulars noted. And astro- 
nomical calculations have just ascertained that it 
occurred on the 15th day of June, B. C. 763, and that 
it was a total eclipse. — Thus the sun and moon, the 
faithful witnesses established in the heavens, point out 
to us the places, and read to us the dates, of events that 
transpired in this lower world hundreds and thousands 
of years before we came into being ! How wonderful 
the ingenuity of man that can elicit such information 
from distant worlds ; how surpassing wonder the unde- 
viating and infallible movements of those heavenly 
orbs through all the lapse of ages ! 



270 THE FOURTH DAY. 



EEFLECTIONS. 



In the moon we have literally opened up to us a neio 
world, full of strange scenes, and suggestive of a thou- 
sand thoughts that expand our conceptions of the great 
work of creation. Who can look up at her in her 
naked grandeur, or contemplate her scenes of frightful 
wilds and desolations, or witness the ominous gloom 
attendant upon her eclipses, and not be led to muse, 
Whence originated this wondrous orb ? Who poised it 
in the empty space above ? When were those rocky 
steeps, those mountain pinnacles, piled on high ? By 
what means, and for what ends, were scooped out those 
profound and gloomy caverns in her sides ? Whence 
the impulse that gave to her her mystic motions 
through the heavens ? Who were present and witnesses 
of the deed? What has been her eventful history? 
And to what destiny does she hasten in the end? 
These are reflections in which no serious mind can in- 
dulge without being raised in awe and adoration to the 
Great Architect, who by his Spirit garnished the 
heavens, and established the earth. 

From a hint dropped in the Holy Book, the moon 
occurs to us at once as an expressive emblem of the 
Church of God on earth. 

As the moon, though widely separated from the 
earth, is attached to it by the invisible bonds of gravi- 
tation, and ordained to travel with it in its appointed 
course round the sun — so the church militant, though 



THE FOURTH DAY. 271 

distinct from the world, is connected with it by many 
ties, and appointed to pursue her pilgrimage along with 
it to eternity. 

As the moou receives all her light from the natural 
sun, so the church receives all her spiritual light from 
the Sun of Righteousness. Let the sun veil himself 
from the moon and she is in utter darkness, and can be 
seen no more : so let the Sun of Righteousness hide his 
face from the church and she is involved in darkness 
and sorrow ; her light, like that of the moon, is derived 
from another and a higher source. 

As the moon has been appointed to reflect the light 
she receives upon the earth to relieve her darkness, to 
guide the lone mariner on the deep, to lead the belated 
traveller in his path, and to cheer the shepherd keep- 
ing watch over his flock by night — so the church has 
been ordained to reflect her heavenly light for the 
guidance of benighted and bewildered humanity around 
her. The design of her establishment, like that of the 
moon, is to give light upon the earth. 

As the moon remains not stationary in the heavens 
over some favored spot, but according to the law of her 
creation, pursues her career round the globe to cheer 
and enlighten its every habitable region — so the church 
has been organized and commanded to carry the light 
of the Gospel into all the world, and preach the un- 
searchable riches of Christ to every creature. 

As the moon, while shining in her usual brightness, 
moves forward unnoticed, but when under an eclipse 



272 THE FOURTH DAY. 

has the gaze and remarks of half the earth's population 
— so the church while walking in light and love, en- 
lists but little of the world's attention; but let her 
honor pass under a cloud, or her purity be tarnished 
by the misconduct of but a member, and the eyes of all 
are fixed upon her, and her failing repeated by every 
tongue. Let the Israel of God take heed to their ways. 



THE PLANETS. 

He made the Stars also. 

The inspired Historian, having spoken of the two 
great lights, and described their appointed offices so far 
as we are concerned, before returning to the creative 
process on the face of the earth, casts a glance toward 
the nocturnal heavens, and tells us that the same Al- 
mighty Hand " made the stars also." Looking upward 
with him, the first thing that strikes us, is the great 
number and brilliancy of these stars. Observing them 
closely, other features and distinctions soon reveal them- 
selves to us among them. They appear to be of two 
kinds or classes. One class, by far the most numerous, 
retain the same relative positions, never further from 
or nearer to one another ; and are of such a nature that 
no telescope, however we may increase its magnifying 
power, produces the least change in their apparent 
dimensions : these are called Fixed Stars. The other 
class, few in number, continually change their positions, 



THE FOURTH DAY. 273 

sometimes approaching to and sometimes receding from 
each other ; now rising or setting early, and now late ; 
these are readily magnified by the power of the tele^ 
scope, and are called Planets, or wandering stars. Of 
planets there are eight large ones, our globe being in- 
cluded in the number ; and about one hundred small 
ones, or planetoids. All the planets, at different dis- 
tances and in different periods, revolve around the sun 
as their common centre ; and their orbits, magnitudes, 
and rotations have been calculated with the utmost 
precision. 

The first and nearest planet to the sun is Mercury. 
It revolves around him at the mean distance of 37,000,- 
000 of miles, and completes its circuit in 87 ds. 23 hrs. 
and 25 min. ; in doing this it moves at the amazing 
velocity of 109,000 miles per hour. It rotates upon 
its axis in 24 hrs. and 5 min. Hence, while its days 
and nights do not differ materially from our own, its 
annual changes of summer and winter return four times 
to our one. Its diameter is 3,200 miles ; consequently 
its bulk is only one-fifteenth that of our globe. But it 
is composed of materials far more dense or weighty 
than those of any of the other planets. Its entire 
weight is but one-sixth that of the earth ; and gravita- 
tion at its surface is only two-fifths of what we expe- 
rience ; hence an individual who can lift 200 pounds on 
the earth, could lift on Mercury 500 pounds with the 
same exertion. 

This planet, moving as it does so near the sun, is 

18 



274 THE FOURTH DAY. 

visible to the naked eye only at intervals, or when 
furthest from him, when it appears to emit very 
white light. In consequence of its orbit being within 
that of the earth, it passes in the course of its revo- 
lution through all the phases of the moon, which 
proves it to be in itself a dark body, and this is also 
proved from its transit across the sun, when it appears 
as a black spot on his disk. By reason of its constant 
proximity to the sun, never further than twenty-nine 
degrees, the telescope has been able to make but few 
discoveries on its surface. Certain inequalities, how- 
ever, have been detected ; some of which are supposed 
to be mountains. The quantity of light and heat 
poured by the sun on mercury is nearly seven times 
that upon the earth ; but as it is surrounded by an at- 
mosphere much loaded with clouds, these may serve to 
mitigate the intensity of both, so that it is possible this 
planet may be as comfortable an abode as our own globe. 
The next planet in order is Venus, the morning and 
evening star, and, to the naked eye, the most brilliant 
and beautiful in the heavens. It revolves about the 
sun at the mean distance of 68,000,000 of miles, mov- 
ing at the rate of 80,000 miles per hour, and complet- 
ing its circuit in 224 ds. and 16 hrs. Hence the length 
of its year is only seven and one-half months. It 
rotates upon its axis in 23 hrs. and 21 min., so that its 
days and nights, as to length, are very nearly the same 
as our own. In its revolution around the sun, like 
Mercury, and for the same reason, it passes through all 



THE FOURTH DAY. 275 

the phases of the moon ; and like that planet also, it 
makes a transit across the sun's disk ; both these cir- 
cumstances prove it, though shining so brilliantly, to 
be in itself a perfectly dark body. Its next transit 
will be on December 9, 1874. 

In size and weight this planet is very nearly equal 
to the earth; its diameter being 7,800 miles. From 
its surface, the sun appears twice as large as he does to 
us, and of course it receives double the amount of light 
and heat. Both these, however, may be greatly modi- 
fied by its extensive and vaporous atmosphere, which 
is said to be as dense again as ours ; so that its climate 
may be genial and delightful as that of the tropical 
regions of the earth. Venus, at its nearest approach, 
comes within 27,000,000 of miles of the earth. It 
might, therefore, be supposed that we should be better 
acquainted with it than any other celestial body, as no 
other comes so near us, the moon excepted. This, 
however, is not the case ; its intense lustre dazzles the 
sight, and renders it the most difficult of all to define 
with the telescope. Some observers have thought 
they detected several mountain ridges of great extent 
and elevation upon its surface, but this is doubtful. 

The third planet in the system is the Earth, the 
world of man. We have already described the phys- 
ical phenomena of the earth's surface, and it remains 
for us here only to notice her position and relations as 
a planet, or a member of the solar system. 

The earth travels round the sun in an elliptical 



276 TEE FOURTH DAY. 

orbit, the longer diameter of which is more than 
3,000,000 of miles greater than the shorter ; and, in 
consequence of this, strange as it may seem, we are 
much Hearer the sun at midwinter than in midsum- 
mer. The mean distance of our globe from the sun is 
about 92,000,000 of miles. It accomplishes its annual 
revolution, a journey of more than 550,000,000 of miles, 
in 365 ds. 5 hrs. 48 min. and 49 sec. And nothing 
can be more astonishing than the uniformity and preci- 
sion with which it performs this stupendous circuit. 
To assist us in appreciating this, let us suppose that the 
solar system was first set in motion just 6,000 years 
ago, and that the earth had fallen behind or been in 
advance of its designed and appointed speed only jive 
seconds in running 1,000,000 of miles, which would 
have been a small error indeed ; yet, at this date, it 
would have amounted to more than six months, and our 
globe would have been at that point in her orbit marked 
by the first of January, when it should have been at that 
of the first of July. But no such reversion of seasons 
has taken place, therefore even this discrepancy has 
not occurred ; so that midsummer and midwinter are 
to us where they were to Noah in building the ark, 
and to Adam when roaming amid the beauties of 
Paradise. 

It is a fact worthy of special notice and admiration, 
that the length of the earth's year has been so mea- 
sured as to be exactly adapted to the constitution of 
the plants and animals occupying its surface, or the 



THE FOURTH DAY, 277 

constitution of these plants and animals has been so 
adjusted as to be exactly suited to the length of the 
year. The vegetable clock, says Wheewell, is so set 
as to go a year. To raise the sap, form the juices, un- 
fold the leaves, expand the flowers, mature the seed, 
ripen the fruit, and rest and recuperate the vital energies 
— all this requires just the present seasons, and just the 
period of a year. Were the year either lengthened or 
shortened three or four months, the whole vegetable 
world would be thrown into utter disorder ; the func- 
tions of plants would be entirely deranged, and the 
whole vegetable kingdom would be involved in imme- 
diate decay and rapid extinction. The same holds 
true in regard to animals. Every species of beasts in 
all their reproductive energies, functions, and habits 
are constituted with obvious reference to the yearly 
cycle. So, too, are the birds ; the process of paring, 
nesting, hatching, fledging, etc., take up and require 
the year to complete. And even the insects in their 
production, transformations, and hybernation, evince 
a similar adaptation to this specific period of time. 
Here, then, is an adjustment, not in one or two species 
only, but in thousands and tens of thousands, that 
offers a most striking demonstration of calculating and 
designing wisdom in the formation of the world. Here 
are myriads of animal and vegetable chronometers, 
endlessly diversified in form and character, yet all 
wound up so as to run exactly for the period measured 
out by the earth's revolution. 



278 TEE FOURTH DAY. 

While the earth pursues its yearly course, it at the 
same time rotates upon its axis, or a line of diameter. 
This axis is not upright, or perpendicular to the plane 
of its orbit, but inclines twenty-three and a half de- 
grees from a perpendicular line. This inclination it 
preserves throughout its annual course, always point- 
ing in the same direction, always keeping parallel with 
itself. From this simple adjustment a series of changes 
and influences result of the utmost importance to our 
world. By this means the whole round of the seasons 
is produced, and the duration of light and darkness 
made to vary, not only at different periods of the year, 
but also in all the different latitudes of the globe. It 
is owing to this that, during the summer half of the 
year, the days increase in length as we depart from the 
equator, from twelve hours until, at the pole, there is 
a continuous day of sunlight for six months ; while in 
the opposite hemisphere there is a similar increase of 
darkness, until, at the other pole, there is a night of six 
months, during which the sun never once appears above 
the horizon. Had the earth revolved in a circular 
orbit and been set to rotate on a perpendicular axis, 
(which probably would have been the arrangement of 
man,) we should have known none of these interesting 
and important vicissitudes. Day and night would 
have been always and everywhere of the same uniform 
length ; and instead of the delightful diversity of sea- 
sons which we now enjoy — the winter reposing and 
invigorating the energies of vegetable and animal, the 



THE FOURTH DAY. 279 

spring renewing and enlivening the face of nature, the 
summer investing the earth with its luxuriance and 
glories of sunshine, and autumn bringing in its golden 
fruits and softly fading shades — instead of all this, the 
year, from its beginning to its close, would have been 
one dull monotony. All these grateful, interesting, 
and important changes are secured by the introduction 
of an angle of few degrees — by the slight inclination 
of a single line ! How simple the means, yet how vast 
and varied and important the results ! 

The civil day of twenty-four hours is not the mea- 
sure of the earth's diurnal revolution, but a mean of 
all the solar days in the year, which are perpetually 
varying. The exact time in which it rotates upon 
its axis is 23 hrs. 56 min. 4.09 sec. This carries its 
equator round at the rate of more than 1,000 miles 
per hour — a velocity in itself sufficient to rend the 
mountains, yet so equable is the motion that it dis- 
turbs not even the delicate down that rests so lightly 
upon the leaf of a flower ! It is, moreover, an abso- 
lutely undeviating and perfect motion. Our globe in 
its diurnal rotation has not varied the breadth of a 
hair or the fraction of a second since man was placed 
upon it. If its motion upon its axis had slackened by 
the one-hundredth part of a second in a revolution, 
and continued to do so for 6,000 years, the day would 
have been already lengthened by six hours, and the 
number of days in the year reduced to 292. But as 
no such change in our days has occurred, of course no 



280 TBE FOURTH DAY. 

such variation even as the hundredth part of a second 
has taken place. Who then can sufficiently admire the 
perfection of the Creator's works ! But our admiration 
must rise to the higher feeling of devout gratitude when 
we consider that this perfection of the earth's rotation 
is essential to the welfare of every living thing upon it. 
In the constitution of both plants and animals there 
is found a periodicity of functions corresponding to the 
period of the globe's diurnal rotation, the one being 
exactly adapted to the other. The cycle of light and 
darkness, says Wheewell, from whom these thoughts 
are borrowed, coincides with the cycle of the animal 
and vegetable constitution. The chemistry of all 
plants is carried on according to the regular alterna- 
tion of day and night, which also have their influence 
on the circulation of the sap. Flowers, too, have their 
set and regular hours to open and close. All these and 
many other things clearly prove that there is a diurnal 
period belonging to the constitution of vegetables, and 
that they are in their structure adapted to the periods 
of day and night. Animals also exhibit with equal 
plainness the same periodicity and adaptation in their 
constitution by their instinctive and stated habits of 
waking, sleeping, eating, etc. Birds retire and rise, 
and cocks crow through the watches of the night with 
the regularity of a clock. Nor is man in this case an 
exception ; his food, and labor, and repose must recur 
with every twenty-four hours ; any material or pro- 
longed departure from this cycle will surely bring 



THE FOURTH DAY. 281 

on its retribution of evil in the loss of health and 
strength. 

Now there appears no reason why the earth, of 
necessity, should rotate in just the period of twenty- 
four hours. It might have revolved in a very differ- 
ent period ; other planets do so. Nor, on the other 
hand, can we discover any reason necessitating the 
constitution of plants, animals, and man to be just of 
the same periodical character ; for aught that we can 
see, they might have been made for a period much 
longer or shorter, or all of them made for different 
periods. Whence then this universal harmony out of 
innumerable possibilities ? Whence these equal periods 
in a bird and a planet, in a flower and a world, in 
a puny man and a stupendous globe? Whence this 
adaptation of every organized being of the earth to 
the specific time of its revolution on its axis ? But 
one answer can be returned. But to perceive this 
point in its full force, let us for a moment suppose 
things to be otherwise than we find them ; let us 
conceive the animal and vegetable machinery to be 
made to run for twelve hours, and the earth's rotation 
to be changed to forty-eight hours. What in that case 
would be the results ? Obviously a total derangement 
of the whole organized creation ; all the functions of 
both plantal and animal life would be fatally dis- 
turbed ; both would languish and fail ; and man him- 
self would soon sink exhausted beneath the protracted 
toil of so long a day. How manifest, then, the fore- 



282 THE FOURTH DAY. 

sight and designing wisdom of the Creator in the ex- 
isting arrangements of our world. How plain that he 
who measured out the impulse that gave to the earth 
its rotation, measured also the degree of vital energy 
that would adapt the constitution of every plant and 
animal that were to occupy its surface. 

Equally manifest is the wisdom of the Divine Archi- 
tect in fixing the distance at which our globe revolves 
around the sun. The distance of a planet from the 
sun, other things being equal, determines its amount of 
light and heat. If, therefore, the earth with its occu- 
pants, as now constituted, were placed much nearer the 
sun, or much further from him, the change would be 
attended with fatal consequences. Were it transferred, 
for example, to move in the orbit of Mercury, our light 
and heat would be increased seven-fold, and the dazzling 
splendor of the sun would extinguish our vision, and 
the intensity of his beams speedily dry up all the fluids 
in our bodies. On the other hand, were the earth 
driven away to revolve in the distant orbit of Saturn, 
our light and heat would be only one-ninetieth part of 
what we now enjoy, and the feeble and scattered rays 
of the sun, would scarcely enable us to distinguish him 
from a star ; nay, ere we could cast about to make such 
. an observation, the immeasurable cold would transform 
us into a rock of ice. We see, then, that our globe 
might have moved at a hundred different distances all 
too near the sun, and at a thousand other distances all 
too far from him, to be a suitable abode for its present 



THE FOURTH DAY. 283 

inhabitants. But we find it placed in an orbit where 
the temperature is exactly adapted to the bodily con- 
stitution, and the degree of light precisely suits the 
visual organs, of all its living tenants. To whom then 
are we to ascribe this striking coincidence, this happy 
and universal adaptation ? To chance ? or to the fore- 
sight and contrivance of the Infinite Mind ? 

Once more : The all-comprehending wisdom of the 
Divine Builder is seen in the mass and dimensions of 
our planet. The earth is a globe whose equatorial 
diameter is 7,926 miles; and whose density is four and 
a half times that of water ; that is, the earth if placed 
in a balance would weigh four and a half globes of 
water of equal size with itself. These two things, its 
density and dimensions, determine the amount of 
gravitation at its surface ; or which is the same thing, 
the force or weight with which any object or substance 
presses down towards its centre. Now the gravitation 
of the earth, for anything that appears, might have 
been different from what it is ; it might have been 
much greater by increasing its size, or by employing 
denser materials, like those of Mercury, in its construc- 
tion ; or it might have been much less by reducing its 
dimensions, or by constructing it of lighter substances, 
similar to those of Saturn. Man's science can dis- 
cover no necessitating reason why the globe should be 
precisely of its present mass or dimensions ; we see in 
the system other planets that differ widely from it in 
both these particulars; gravitation on the surface of 



284 THE FOURTH DAY. 

Jupiter is two and a half times that of the earth; 
while on the surface of Mars it is only one-half what 
we experience. The gravitation of our globe, there- 
fore, might have been much more, or much less 
than it is. 

Let us now, for illustration's sake, consider what 
would be the consequences to the present vegetation 
and animals of the earth were its gravitation increased 
— say doubled. This, of course, would double the 
weight of every object and element on its face. The 
atmosphere would press with two-fold force, and thus 
render respiration laborious and painful. Water would 
be of double weight, and the sap in trees and plants 
would fail to ascend, so that every green thing would 
soon perish from the earth. Tools and implements 
would become unwieldy, and every mechanical opera- 
tion in the field and in the workshop would demand 
as much strength again as at present. And in such a 
state of things, every animal would move about as if 
loaded with another of equal weight with itself. The 
operations of life would become impracticable, men 
would be barely able to crawl about, and their strength 
would be exhausted in bearing their own weight. 
The horse would be deprived of his power to labor, 
and of his speed to travel. The dog would lose his 
fleetness, the cat her elasticity and spring, and the 
bird its ability to glide through the air. Wheat and 
other grains would bend and break the straw, and be 
lost on the ground. Dwellings would fall by their 



THE FOURTH DAY. 285 

own weight. Rain and hail would beat down with 
increased force, and floods would rush with irresistible 
impetuosity. Winds would move with destructive 
power, and in stormy weather, neither house nor tree 
could resist their violence. In short, the whole course 
of nature would be overturned, all human labor and 
enterprise would be arrested, and all business brought 
to an eternal close. 

If, on the other hand, we suppose gravitation to be 
diminished — let us imagine to one-half its present 
force; and consequences equally disastrous would re- 
sult. Everything in this case would be half its present 
weight. The air would be two-fold lighter, and so 
become too rarified to sustain life. The sap would 
ascend with unnatural rapidity, and overload the 
leaves, and thus produce disorder and death through- 
out the vegetable world. Houses would rest so lightly 
on their foundations as to be turned over by every 
gust of wind like empty boxes. Things would hardly 
remain where we placed them, but would slide hither 
and thither with the slightest touch. Men and ani- 
mals would move about with the unsteadiness of ships 
without ballast, and breathe with the distress experi- 
enced by travellers on the summits of the Andes. 
How different from either of these suppositions is the 
actual state of things, where we behold every thing 
throughout the field of nature, in due and suitable 
proportion, every thing adjusted and balanced to 
accomplish its purpose with ease and certainty; and 



286 THE FOURTH DAY. 

man and beast and bird adapted in the strength of 
their muscles and organs to every element about them, 
and all resulting in a world of pleasing activity and 
universal harmony ! 

We have now seen the most marked evidences of 
designing wisdom in the creation of the planet upon 
which we dwell — in the uniformity and perfection of 
its movements — in the adjustment of its annual and 
diurnal revolutions to the constitution of plants and 
animals — in the pleasing succession of seasons, and the 
variation of days and nights — in the distance at which 
it has been set to revolve around the sun, so as to 
measure for us the right degree of light and heat — and 
in its mass and dimensions graduating its attractive 
force to our strength and convenience. Who that 
intelligently views and duly weighs all these things, 
but must confess that the world we live in is the 
production of infinite Wisdom, Power and Goodness? 
" Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the founda- 
tions of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of 
thy hands. Thou hast made the beast of the field, 
and the fowls of the air, and every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth." 

Leaving our own globe for the present, and continu- 
ing our outward progress from the sun, we next alight 
upon ruddy Mars. This planet, although at its 
nearest approach to the earth, 50,000,000 miles distant, 
yet is more favorable for observation than any of the 
others; and we are, therefore, better acquainted with 



THE FOURTH DAY. 287 

its physical peculiarities. In very many particulars, 
it bears a striking resemblance to the globe upon 
which we live. Its mean distance from the sun is 
145,000,000 of miles; its orbit is quite elliptical, in 
which it moves at the rate of 54,000 miles per hour, 
and completes its revolution in 687 days; consequently 
its year and its seasons are nearly twice the length of 
ours. The period of its diurnal rotation is 24 hrs. 
and 37 min. ; its axis, like the earth's, is inclined ; hence 
it has days and nights of variable length, together with 
a diversity of seasons similar to what we enjoy. Its 
diameter is 4,100 miles. Both in bulk and weight, it 
is about one-seventh those of the earth. Its light and 
heat from the sun are about one-half of ours. It is 
encompassed by a dense atmosphere, that often abounds 
with clouds exhibiting all the various tints and shades 
of our own skies. 

In its surface arrangements, also, this planet presents 
a marked similarity to the earth. In Mars, says Sir 
John Herschell, we frequently discern with perfect 
distinctness the outlines of what may be continents 
and seas. The land is of a ruddy color, while the 
waters appear greenish; both these, with their gulfs 
and promontories and islands, when its atmosphere is 
clear of clouds, are brought successively into view so 
plainly by the rotation of the planet, that it has been 
found possible to construct a chart of its surface. The 
shores are observed to be remarkably sinuous in their 
course, so that the indentation of the coasts by bays 



288 THE FOURTH DAY. 

and creeks is very picturesque. As this planet has no 
moon, its oceans probably are nearly tideless, Though 
no elevated mountain ranges have been discovered, yet 
the land is sufficiently mottled with shaded spots, to 
indicate an agreeable undulation and diversity of sur- 
face. Unlike our globe, its face is pretty nearly 
equally divided between land and water. Its heavy 
clouds are sufficient evidences of the formation and fall 
of rain to refresh its valleys and plains ; while the pure 
white expanse which has been observed around the 
poles, offers a high probability that those regions are 
mantled with snow. These white patches gradually 
disappear as they become exposed to the returning sun 
of summer, and are greatest in extent when just 
emerging from the long night of their polar winter. 
These changes of appearance have long been observed 
to return as regularly as the seasons. Owing to the 
great eccentricity of this planet, being at one point of 
its orbit 27,000,000 of miles nearer to the sun than at 
the opposite point, the summers are hotter and the 
winters are colder in its southern hemisphere than in 
its northern. And this is confirmed by observation ; 
for while the northern expanse of snow varies but 
slightly in dimensions, the southern is of great size in 
the winter, and almost vanishes in the summer. 
Thus, then, Mars has its sea and land, its atmosphere 
and changes of weather, its snows and rains and winds, 
its cloudy days and bright and sunny skies; and, if 
not its seed-time and harvest, it has at least its spring 



THE FOURTH DAY. 289 

and summer, autumn and winter, with all their 
pleasant vicissitudes, like the planet upon which our 
own lot has been cast. 

Pursuing our outward course through the system, 
we next encounter a group of small planets, called 
Asteroids, numbering about one hundred. All these 
revolve at different distances and in different periods, 
between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The diameter 
of the largest is only a little over 2,000 miles ; and 
from this they descend to mere globules of fifty or forty 
miles in diameter. A man placed on one of these 
small worlds would spring with ease sixty or seventy 
feet high, and sustain no greater shock in his descent 
than he does on the earth from leaping a yard. On 
account of their diminutive sizes, but little is known of 
them. 

Taking our leave with this brief and imperfect ac- 
quaintance with the planetoidal family, we have now, 
after leaving the last of them, to travel the mighty 
interval of 170,000,000 of miles, to reach the next 
great orb in the system, which is Jupiter. This mag- 
nificent planet, attended by four satellites, sweeps 
round the sun at the distance of 495,000,000 of miles, 
moving at the rate of 29,000 miles per hour, and ac- 
complishing its revolution in 4,332 1 days, a period of 
nearly twelve years. Its dimensions are upon a scale 
of equal grandeur; its diameter being not less than 
87,000 miles, and its bulk more than 1,300 times that 
of the earth. It is composed of lighter materials, how- 

19 



290 THE FOURTH DAY. 

ever ; but on account of its surpassing magnitude, is of 
a weight 333 times that of our globe. This is the 
largest body connected with the planetary system, the 
sun only excepted. When nearest the earth it is 
400,000,000 of miles distant from us ; yet, after Venus, 
it is the most brilliant star in the heavens. This 
stupendous sphere rotates upon its axis, which is 
very nearly perpendicular, in 9 hrs. and 56 min. ; 
thus carrying round whatever beings or objects may 
be on its equator, at the rate of 28,000 miles an 
hour, or twenty-seven times more rapidly than are 
those on the equator of the earth. Hence, Jupiter has 
a rapid alternation of days and nights, varying but lit- 
tle if any in length ; and a slow round of seasons, each 
season nearly three years long, and varying as little in 
their temperature. 

Such is the distance of this planet from us that noth- 
ing like mountains or the outlines of continents and 
oceans have been discovered in it. Its whole disk, 
however, is traversed by light and dark belts, running 
nearly parallel to one another and to its equator, 
though they have often been known to change both 
their form and number. These are regarded by 
astronomers as lines of bright clouds alternating with 
darker belts of the planet's surface, as seen between 
them, and having their direction determined by cur- 
rents analogous to our trade winds, but of a much more 
steady and decided character, in consequence of the 
great rotary velocity. But the existence of clouds im- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 291 

plies and proves several other important facts — that 
there is an atmosphere in which they float, that there 
is water from which they arise, that there is heat by 
which that water is evaporated, and rain or snow into 
which they condense. The apparent diameter of the 
sun from Jupiter is not more than one-fifth what it is 
to us ; consequently the light and heat it derives from 
him are only about one-twenty-fifth of what we receive; 
but this deficiency of light is made up in part by the 
reflection of its four moons, and that of heat may be by 
the higher temperature of its own body. 

"While to us Jupiter is the brightest, save one of all 
the planets, our world is altogether invisible to Jupiter. 
An observer on that planet, with eyes such as we have, 
would have no suspicion that such a globe as the earth 
was in existence ; its fancied greatness and proud in- 
habitants all would be utterly unnoticed, and altogether 
unknown to him. And from the facts now stated, it 
will appear that the arrangements of this planet, and 
the condition of things upon its surface must be very 
different from what obtains in our world. The 
amount of gravitation, as already stated, being two and 
a half times that of the earth, its inhabitants rational 
and irrational (if any it has), if constituted like those 
of our globe, in order to move and act with ease, must 
possess two and a half times their strength. Our 
armour-clad Goliath there would be barely able, like a 
tortoise, to crawl beneath his shield. A man sixty 
years old, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, 



292 THE FOURTH DAY. 

if transported to the surface of Jupiter, would find him- 
self an infant of five summers, yet weighing four hun- 
dred pounds, but not possessing the strength necessary 
to take his first tottering step. So diverse are the 
works of God. 

Jupiter has been deemed worthy the attendance of no 
less than four moons, which constantly accompany and 
revolve about it; thus forming a miniature system, 
entirely analogous to the great system of the sun, and 
moving in the same direction, and obeying the same 
law of gravitation. These satellites of different dimen- 
sions, and revolving at different distances and veloci- 
ties, exhibit many interesting and sublime phenomena 
to its inhabitants, as they perform their natural courses 
through the firmament. Sometimes they are seen 
eclipsing the sun, at other times the stars, and occa- 
sionally eclipsing one another. Sometimes two, three, 
and even all the four are seen shining in the heavens 
in one bright assemblage ; one, perhaps, in the form of 
a crescent, one with a gibbous phase, one like a Half- 
moon, and the other with a full enlightened hemisphere; 
one moving comparatively slowly, and another rushing 
rapidly through the skies, and leaving all the others 
behind it ; one under a total eclipse, another entering 
into it, and a third emerging from it. 

In Jupiter and its attendant satellites, therefore, we 
have a most sublime and impressive display of creative 
skill and might. Could we enlarge our minds and 
quicken our imagination so as to attain anything like 



THE FOURTH DAY. 293 

a lively and adequate conception of a globe 1,300 times 
larger than the earth, rotating upon its axis with fear- 
ful velocity, and flying onward through the heavens at 
the rate of 29,000 miles per hour, and carrying along 
with it four large revolving moons in its swift career — 
we should have before us a scene of overwhelming 
grandeur, and such as could not fail to call forth the 
adoring exclamation, " The Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth !" 

Quitting the orbit of Jupiter, and pursuing our out- 
ward bound voyage through space, after crossing the 
stupendous interval of 410,000,000 of miles, we reach 
the majestic orb of SATURN. This planet together with 
its rings and satellites, presents the most wonderful and 
magnificent spectacle in the whole solar system. In 
magnitude it is a 1,000 times that of the earth, its 
diameter being 79,000 miles. Its distance from the 
sun is nearly double that of Jupiter, 906,000,000 of 
miles ; and it occupies nearly thirty years in completing 
its revolution, moving at the rate of 22,000 miles per 
hour. Its orbit measures 5,700,000,000 of miles, a 
distance that a railroad train running at the speed of 
thirty miles per hour would not travel in less than 
21,000 years ! 

Saturn rotates upon its axis, which is nearly perpen- 
dicular, in the space of 10 hrs. and 16 min. ; its days and 
nights therefore, are invariable, and not quite half as 
long as ours. Its light and heat from the sun are only 
one-ninetieth of ours. But its condition on this ac- 



294 THE FOURTH DAY. 

count is not so dismal or desolate as would appear at 
first sight. The light of our full moon is estimated by 
Bouguer to be one-three-hundred- thousandth part that 
of the sun, and that of Saturn is one-ninetieth part 
of this ; the degree of light upon its surface, therefore, 
is equal to more than 3,000 full moons, which assuredly 
must create a day of fair brightness, and sufficient for 
the common duties of life. In density this planet is 
below all the others, being only one-ninth that of the 
earth ; in other words, the weight of its materials is but 
little more than that of cork ; but on account of its im- 
mense size, its entire weight is equal to one hundred 
and twenty times the weight of our globe ; and the 
force of gravitation on its surface is somewhat greater 
than that to which we are subject. Its surface, like 
that of Jupiter, is traversed by cloudy belts, which 
indicate the existence of both water and atmosphere. 

To Saturn there belongs an illuminating appendage 
which no other planet possesses. It is surrounded by 
three broad, flat, and extremely thin concentric rings, 
all lying in the same plane, and separated by compara- 
tively narrow intervals. Galileo was the first of mor- 
tals that caught a glimpse of these wonderful structures. 
The exterior diameter of the outer ring is 177,000 
miles ; and its width 21,000 miles. Between this and 
the interior bright ring there is a space of 1,790 miles; 
the width of this is little more than 34,000 miles, and 
its distance from the surface of the planet is 20,000 
miles. The thickness of the rings, according to Her- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 295 

schell, cannot exceed 250 miles, and who also gives 
it as his opinion that they are of a vaporous con- 
stitution; they are, however, of sufficient density to 
throw a dark shadow on the body of the planet, 
and thus occasion a total eclipse of the sun to those 
parts for a period of nearly fifteen years together. 
The rings revolve about the planet in nearly the same 
time that the planet rotates upon its axis. Nothing 
can exceed the marvellous wisdom, and mathematical 
nicety of adjustment displayed in all the parts and dis- 
tances, motions and eccentricities of these rings, so as 
to preserve them, on the one hand, from flying off from 
the planet in its swift career, and on the other, from 
falling down on its surface, and producing a derange- 
ment of the whole fabric, Here is machinery in which 
the calculations of the Great Architect are as manifest 
as if they had been written out in algebraic formulae 
upon its splendid arches. 

This planet is also furnished with no less than eight 
large moons ; these revolve in nearly the same plane, 
and in the same direction as the rings. From the 
outer ring to the orbit of the first is a distance of only 
18,000 miles. These satellites revolve, like those of 
Jupiter, at various distances and in different periods ; 
and like them also they undergo frequent eclipses, and 
pass through the same round of phases. 

From the foregoing facts it is obvious that the 
nocturnal firmament of Saturn exhibits a scene of 
grandeur beyond that of any planet in the system. 



296 THE FOURTH DAY. 

Besides the innumerable hosts of stars of various mag- 
nitude and brilliancy, there are its eight magnificent 
satellites, some rising and some setting, some in slender 
crescents and some full-orbed ; together with the lumin- 
ous arches towering one above another, and stretching 
from one horizon to another — all this must present a 
scene of celestial grandeur surpassing all imagination. 
Saturn with its satellites and rings, doubtless, is one of 
the most signal, most marvellous, and most direct and 
clear indications of the Divine Hand, that the whole 
visible creation presents. It is one of the most start- 
ling exhibitions of the Almighty's power and un- 
searchable wisdom that man has been permitted to 
contemplate. When the piercing telescope lifts the 
veil of distance, and reveals this glorious mystery, it 
creates a thrill of wonder, and awakens transports of 
solemn joy within the soul, which no words can utter 
or describe. 

Vast is the distance we have already travelled from 
the great central sun, but now we have again to plunge 
forward into the dim immensity, and double all this, 
and at the remoteness of 1,820,000,000 of miles from 
the sun, we find the mysterious Uranus, a planet 
whose diameter is not less than 35,000 miles, and bulk 
eighty- two times that of our own globe, moving at the 
rate of 15,000 miles per hour. This planet occupies a 
period of eighty-four years in completing its revolution 
round the sun. Consequently twenty-two of its years 
would carry us back to the time when the Son of God 



THE FOURTH DAY. 297 

was on his errand of mercy on our own planet. The 
time of its rotation upon its axis is unknown. Through 
the most powerful telescopes nothing is seen of it but a 
small round uniformly illuminated disk, without rings, 
belts or spots. The quantity of light it receives from 
the sun is 360 times less than what the earth re- 
ceives ; but according to Bouguer's estimate, before 
referred to, this is equivalent to more than 800 full 
moons; and to eyes of higher sensibility, and con- 
structed to take in ten or twenty times the amount of 
light that ours are capable of, this may be quite 
sufficient to make a bright and clear day. 

Uranus is attended by six satellites. The orbits of 
these exhibit the most remarkable peculiarities. Con- 
trary to the unbroken analogy of the whole planetary 
system, the planes of their orbits are nearly perpendicu- 
lar to the ecliptic, and in these orbits their motions are 
retrograde ; that is, instead of advancing from west to 
east around their primary, as is the case with every 
other planet and satellite, they move in the opposite 
direction. Thus far, this is a profound mystery to all 
the science of man. It may serve, however, to teach 
us that God is not limited either in the magnitude or 
the manner of his operations, and to indicate that we 
may look for endless diversity in all the worlds his 
hands have made. 

Once more we renew and repeat our outward flight, 
and after crossing the mighty chasm of 1,000,000,000 
of miles we reach Neptune, the last and the farthest 



298 THE FOURTH DAY. 

(as far as known) of the planetary worlds. The man- 
ner in which this planet was discovered was remarka- 
ble. While as yet this remote sphere had never been 
beheld by mortal eye; while its distance, its position, 
its mass, and the form of its orbit, were all unknown ; 
by the force and perspicacity of human intellect, from 
its observed effects, (a mere trembling disturbance,) 
upon Uranus, more than 1,000,000,000 of miles dis- 
tant, all these were so accurately calculated as to guide 
the observer to the very point of the heavens where it 
was first seen ! This fact stands alone in the annals 
of science, and constitutes a triumph of the human 
mind, that more than indicates its Divine Paternity 
and immortal destiny. 

Our acquaintance with this planet has been so brief, 
its distance so great, and its situation in the ecliptic so 
little favorable for seeing it with distinctness, that noth- 
ing very positive can be stated as to its physical 
appearance. It was at first supposed to have a ring ; 
this, however, has not been verified ; but it is attended 
by at least one satellite. Its diameter is estimated at 
39,800 miles. Its distance from the sun is 2,862,000, 
000 of miles; and the time of its revolution around 
him not less than one hundred and sixty-four years. 
" The child, whose fresh dewy orbs to-day look up 
wonderingly at the spangled vault where Neptune 
hides itself, will have grown up, fought life's battle, 
grown old, died, and lain in his grave a hundred years, 
by the time that frontier planet is able to get around 



THE FOURTH DAY. 299 

again to its present place in the sky ! According to 
the Neptunian calender, it is only thirty-six years since 
the creation of Adam !" Ecce Ooelum. 

We have now reached the outermost bounds of the 
great Solar System; and while we pause here for a 
moment, looking back over the vast and numerous orbs 
which we have in imagination successively visited, the 
question springs up spontaneously in the mind, For 
what End have these great globes been made, and set in 
incessant revolutions? What is the ultimate purpose 
which they subserve ? Are they the abodes of intelli- 
gent and moral beings like ourselves ? Have we any 
reasonable grounds to think that they are inhabited by 
creatures that know, and serve, and worship the Great 
and Glorious Creator of all ? 

To this question some have been led to return a 
negative answer. They see, or think they see, 
insuperable difficulties in the way of the planets being 
inhabited, arising in the case of some of them from 
their being so near the sun, and thus subject to too 
great a degree of light and heat ; and in that of others 
from their being too far from him, and so receiving too 
little light and heat, to admit of their being the abode 
of sentient and intelligent beings; others of them, 
again, they look upon as being too small and insignifi- 
cant for this end ; while others still appear too large, 
their attraction of gravitation, they say, being such as 
would tie down, if not crush, all organized bodies. 
But it is obvious that the reasonings of such, and the 



300 THE FOURTH DAY. 

conclusions to which they lead, are based upon the 
supposition, that the planets, if inhabited at all, must 
be occupied by such creatures as ourselves. Now, if 
the foregoing difficulties, or the arguments derived from 
them, establish anything, they simply prove that the 
planetary worlds cannot be inhabited by beings consti- 
tuted as men are. But if it were demonstrated that 
man could not live in Mercury, Jupiter, or Neptune, 
that would be no proof that these globes must be 
uninhabited. They may be the homes of creatures of 
other and different constitutions, every way wisely 
and happily adapted to their several physical peculiar- 
ities. It is not to be supposed, indeed, that there are 
men in the planets ; but we may reasonably entertain 
the opinion that each planet has its own wondrous 
catalogue of living tenants, all adapted to its own 
particular construction and mass and position. This 
plan of variety and adaptation we know the Creator 
has adopted and pursued in the arrangements of our 
own planet. We behold not only man and the higher 
animals made for the fairer portions of its surface, but 
we see the mole and the beetle fashioned to inhabit the 
mouldering soil ; the whale and the clio to choose the 
half-frozen depths of the polar seas as their most 
congenial home; the camel and the dromedary to 
subsist amid the arid sands of the Sahara ; the tortuous 
serpent and the four-handed monkey to dwell in the 
heated recesses of the tropical forests. In a word, 
there is not a corner of the earth, nor a cavern of the 



THE FOURTH DAY. 301 

sea, but what has its occupants. Even a drop from 
the green puddle is the home of millions of living 
creatures. The air we breathe is full of invisible life. 
Distilled water acting on calcined flint under a glass 
bell, develops organic life. Even corrosive poisons, 
strong acids, teem with the living. We are, therefore, 
not only warranted, but directed to look for life, and 
an adaptation of life to its circumstances, in every part 
and province of creation. Matter, as far as we can 
trace the footsteps of the Creator, appears to have been 
produced for the purposes of life and intelligence. 
And we may well and reasonably believe, that it is as 
easy for God to create a population for the planets as 
to create the planets themselves; as easy to supply 
Jupiter with tenants, as the earth with its race of men ; 
as easy to devise the organization of an inhabitant for 
Uranus, as that of fishes to occupy the ocean ; as easy 
to animate the dust of Neptune, as to make that dust 
itself. "With God all things are possible." Any 
arguments, therefore, against the planets being inhab- 
ited, drawn from the apparent difference or difficulty in 
their situation, or constitution, can have but little 
force or weight. 

But if nothing can be said in disproof of planet 
populations, what, it may be asked, can be said in 
support of the supposition? We have, indeed, no 
direct evidence, no positive proof to offer; that is, no 
living inhabitant has ever been detected in any of the 
planets; nor have any traces of art or industry, of 



302 THE FOURTH DAY. 

cultivation or building, been discovered on their sur- 
faces. What evidence we have is altogether from 
analogies; but then these analogies are so many, so 
close, and so striking, that when taken together they 
amount to a strong probability, if not to conclusive 
proof, that the other planets subserve the same purpose 
as our own. These analogies have, for the most part, 
been pointed out in the course of the preceding 
descriptions ; but to realize their full weight and force, 
it may be well to collect them into one point of view. 

1. To the earth God has given "two great lights;" 
and for the planets He has done the same thing. To 
all of them He has given the sun to rule the day ; and 
to many of them moons to rule the night. 2. The 
earth perpetually travels round the sun, and the time 
occupied in accomplishing a complete circuit constitutes 
its year : the planets revolve around him in a similar 
manner, and thus measure out their respective years. 
3. The earth turns round upon itself, thus with each 
rotation presenting every part of its circumference to 
the light and heat of the sun : the planets are found to 
do the same, and to enjoy a similar alternation of light 
and darkness. 4. The earth revolves in an elliptical 
orbit, and upon an inclined axis; an arrangement 
which gives it a variety of climates, and a regular 
succession of seasons : the planets revolve in similar 
orbits, and upon axis similarly inclined, which secures 
to them a like difference of climates, and the same 
agreeable vicissitudes of seasons. 5. The earth is 



THE FOURTH DAY. 303 

encompassed by an atmosphere which refracts the light 
and retains the heat of the sun : the planets likewise 
have their atmospheres, creating for them morning and 
evening twilight, and producing currents or winds that 
sweep over their surfaces. 6. The atmosphere of the 
earth is charged more or less with clouds, which often 
assume every shade of color, change their forms and 
positions, and send down refreshing showers : the 
atmospheres of the planets also have their shifting 
clouds of various shades and tints, and which may 
minister to them, as ours to us, "all the bloom and 
luxuriance of vegetation." 7. The cloudy vapors of 
the earth around its poles in winter condense and fall 
in the form of snow : a similar fleecy mantle has been 
observed to cover the polar regions of one of the 
planets, at least, during winter, and to vanish on the 
return of summer. 8. The surface of the earth is 
made up of land and water : and the planets present 
appearances strongly indicative of the existence of 
oceans and continents, bays and promontories, similar 
to our own. 9. The land portion of the earth is ridged 
with mountains and scooped with valleys : the surfaces 
of the planets distinctly exhibit similar inequalities of 
surface. 10. Recent Spectrum Analysis has revealed 
the fact that the planets contain various substances 
that are familiar here upon the earth. 11. In short, 
the planets seem to possess all the elements and 
arrangements which constitute our own a habitable 
globe. 



304 THE FOURTH DAY. 

Now, who can contemplate all these striking an- 
alogies — all these close resemblances in so many 
particulars to the planet we inhabit, and not be 
impressed with the high probability, not to say cer- 
tainty, that those other planetary orbs, which nightly 
roll over our heads, must also be so many spacious 
worlds; that, like our own, they teem with life and 
intelligence ? With such an assemblage of circumstan- 
tial evidence before us, can it in reason be supposed 
that worlds so vast, so magnificent, so capable of 
constituting the home and happiness of life and intelli- 
gence, should be vacant balls, mere lumps of dead 
matter, unmeaning and unenjoyed solitudes, shining 
fruitlessly in the midst of heaven ? If not a foot of 
our planet has been left without its living inhabitants, 
can we believe that whole globes, compared with some 
of which our own sinks into insignificance, have been 
left tenantless and waste? Has not matter been 
created in subserviency to life and mind ? Why 
should not the other planets have been created for 
ends as great and noble as that upon which we dwell ? 
Is it not consonant with reason ? Is it not in harmony 
with analogy, and all that we know of the wisdom and 
goodness of the Great Creator, to believe that these 
stately mansions have their sentient and intelligent 
inhabitants, to travel and contemplate their transcen- 
dent scenes of grandeur ; that their plains, and valleys, 
and mountain sides teem with unnumbered millions of 
happy living beings, that offer up their daily prayers 



THE FOURTH DAY. 305 

and adorations to the same Father and God whom we 
worship and serve ? Yes ; 

" Each of those stars is a religious house ; 
I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise, 
And heard hosannas ring through every sphere." 

— Night Thoughts. 

REFLECTIONS. 

The survey now taken of the planetary worlds may 
serve to teach us our place in the creation of God. We 
sometimes speak of our world as being great, and call 
it the universe, as if it constituted the whole empire of 
Jehovah. But how humble a position does it occupy, 
and how small a portion of that empire does it form. 
Not to speak at present of the stars, those centres of 
other systems ; and the nebulae, those assemblages of 
suns and systems ; the earth is far from being foremost 
in magnitude or motions among the globes composing 
our own system. Mercury, Venus, and Mars, are all 
its equals in splendor. In bulk, Uranus exceeds it 80 
times, Neptune 120 times, Saturn 1,000 times, Jupiter 
1,300 times, and the sun more than 1,300,000 times. 
To the earth has been given the service of but one 
solitary moon, while those majestic spheres have been 
deemed worthy the attendance of splendid retinues of 
satellites. We rank, indeed, with the inferior class of 
the orbs constituting the system. Let us learn hence 
" not to look on our globe as the universe of God, but 
one paltry and insignificant part of it ; that it is only 
one of the many mansions which the Supreme Being 

20 



306 THE FOURTH DAY. 

hath created for the accommodation of his worshippers, 
and only one of the many worlds rolling in that flood 
of light which the sun pours around him beyond the 
outer limits of the system." 

From the foregoing view of the great system to 
which our world belongs, we may also learn a lesson 
of personal humility. If we feel our inferiority in the 
presence of human genius ; if we think our individual 
possessions poverty as compared with a nation's wealth ; 
if we see our strength to be but weakness before the 
thundering avalanche; if we deem ourselves obscure 
compared with him who occupies a throne and rules 
the millions of an empire; if we realize our puny 
stature beneath the heights of Alpine mountains — what 
manner of sentiments should possess our souls in the 
presence of the Infinite ! A fellow-man after protrac- 
ted study, much toil, and many fruitless experiments, 
brings forth a tiny engine that drives his little ship or 
car at the rate of twenty or thirty miles an hour, and 
we admire its author, and ascribe to him a triumph — 
yet what has he produced but an infant's toy beside the 
doings of the Most High, who hath formed and set in 
order the machinery of the heavens, and sent forth 
from His hand countless worlds, rolling through im- 
mensity at a speed of 50,000 and even 100,000 miles 
per hour ! In tracing the history of our race, we some- 
times pause over the greatness of those who contrived 
and builded temples, palaces, pyramids and cities — but 
how such ephemeron greatness sinks, vanishes from the 



THE FOURTH DAY. C07 

view, when we contemplate the architecture of creation, 
its vastness, its undecaying magnificence, its unfading 
glories ! We call him great who has marshalled a few 
thousands of his fellows, and led them to slay and 
plunder a few other thousands more helpless than 
themselves, all but as a floating swarm of insects in 
contention — but lift up your eyes, see One who directeth 
all the starry hosts to purposes of beneficence and glory, 
and doeth according to his will among the innumerable 
armies of the skies ! We look up, with profound defer- 
ence to him who sways his sceptre over a few provinces, 
an insignificant fraction of one insignificant globe — 
with what adoring reverence then should we look up 
to Him, who sitteth upon the throne of the universe, 
upholding all things with the word of his power, and 
directing the motions and destinies of suns and worlds 
which neither man nor angel can enumerate ! There 
is nothing great — there is nothing great, hut God ! He 
only hath power. He only hath life and immortality, 
dwelling in light unapproachable. " Lord, when I 
consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is 
man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man 
that thou visitest him ?" 



THE FOURTH DAY. 309 



THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 

He ealleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that 
He is strong in power ; not onefaileth. 

In the preceding chapters we have considered the 
position, the magnitude, the motions and the physical 
peculiarities of the sun, the moon, and the several 
planets as separate bodies ; in this we propose to con- 
sider them as composing one harmonious System. And 
herein we shall discover, not the disconnected and jar- 
ring results of chance, but the most uniform and the 
most mathematically exact adjustment of number, 
weight and measure in every part, exhibiting the most 
convincing evidences that the whole is the work of one 
Omnipotent and All-comprehending Mind. 

The sun is the centre of the system — the centre of 
motion, light and heat to all the planets and satellites 
composing it. And around him all revolve, impelled 
by the same forces, and governed by the same laws. 
1. Every planet moves under the antagonistic forces of 
gravitation and centrifugal impulse. 2. Every planet 
revolves in an elliptical orbit. 3. Though both the 
distance 'and the velocity of every planet vary in differ- 
ent parts of its orbit, yet its radius (vector) sweeps 
over equal areas in equal times. 4. The squares of the 
times in which the different planets revolve around the 
sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distan- 
ces from his centre. 5. All the planets move in orbits 



310 THE FOURTH DAY. 

that are in, or very nearly in the plane of the sun's 
equator. 6. All the planets revolve around the sun in 
the same direction. 7. All the planets rotate upon 
their axis in the same direction as does the sun himself. 
— Now, these remarkable uniformities of forces, orbits, 
rotations, times, distances, areas, and velocities, consti- 
tute a clear and conclusive proof that this magnificent 
system of worlds had its origin, not in blind fortuity, 
but in one Divine Thought. 

Both design and choice are evident in the way and 
means adopted to illuminate the planetary system. It 
is obvious that this system of globes might have existed 
in a condition of utter darkness ; the planets and satel- 
lites might have revolved, as they now do, around a 
central orb that was perfectly dark and cold ; and con- 
tinued their revolutions without day or summer from 
century to century. But in that case it would have 
been a defective and useless system ; its every globe 
would have been a cold, and joyless, and tenantless 
desert. How happened it, then, that one of its globes 
was wrapped in a luminous envelope, pouring an ocean 
of light on every hand ? And how happened it that 
that garment of light fell upon the one, the only one in 
the whole system of adequate dimensions to enlighten 
all the rest ? Had either of the others, even Jupiter 
the largest of them, been equally brilliant, it would 
have been but as a rushlight to the system, and even 
invisible to half its members. And again — How 
happened it that the one luminous globe of the system 



THE FOURTH DAY. 311 

fell to the only position in it, namely the centre, from 
which it could advantageously and adequately send 
forth its beams to warm, enlighten, and cheer the 
whole ? Had the luminary of the system, instead of 
being stationary, revolved, for example, in the orbit of 
Saturn, its light and heat would have been so unequal 
on account of the varying distances of the planets, as 
to prove fatal to every plant and animal upon their 
surfaces ; the earth, for instance, would have been 200, 
000,000 of miles further from it at one period than at 
another. How happened it, then, we ask once more, 
that all the globes of the system are in rapid revolution 
except one, and that the one whose stationary condition 
was essential to the whole ? Here, then, we have a 
number and diversity of distinct circumstances, yet 
each so falling out as to concur with the rest in produc- 
ing a most important and indispensable result, and that 
in the happiest and most effectual manner that can be 
conceived. To what conclusion then are we brought? 
That this vast and splendid system of worlds owes its 
illumination to mere accident, or to design ? That the 
solar lamp was fashioned and lighted up, and fixed so 
happily in the centre of the temple of creation, to 
reveal its beauties and wonders, and to warm and 
enliven its every part, by simple chance, or by design- 
ing Intelligence ? Here every sane mind must come to 
one and the same conclusion. 

Design, evincing profound wisdom and foresight, is 
manifest in the character of the orbits in which the 



312 THE FOURTH DAY. 

planets move. The planetary orbits are all slightly 
elliptical, and of small eccentricity. If the planets had 
been set in motion by any fortuitous cause, we might 
reasonably expect to find them describing all kinds of 
orbits — some circular, some oval, some in shorter and 
some in vastly longer ellipses ; approaching and cross- 
ing one another at various angles, and in many points ; 
and thus move at constant risk of collision and ruin. 
Or, they might have been all set in motion in perfectly 
circular and concentric orbits ; but even in that case, 
as mathematicians are able to demonstrate, their mutual 
attractions would produce perturbations that would go 
on increasing until the whole would be reduced to dis- 
order, and finally to destruction. Or, once more, they 
might all have revolved in long ellipses, and that with 
out risk of coming into contact ; but by such an arrange- 
ment they would have been at one period of their year 
two, three, or four times further from the sun than at 
another, and have been thus hurried with every revolu- 
tion from the extreme intensity of light and heat to the 
opposite extreme of rigorous cold and darkness, both 
equally fatal to all organized existence. But we find 
the system as it exists free from all these dangers and 
inconveniences; we see the planets moving in orbits 
that ensure perfect safety to all, and the highest advan- 
tages to each. Now it is evident that in determining 
their orbits of motion there were a thousand chances 
against conveniency and safety for one in their favor ; 
and the question is, shall we thank fate, alike blind to 



THE FOUBTH DAY. 313 

causes and consequences, or an all-wise Creator that 
could foresee all possible results, that that one was 
adopted and established ? 

Design, full of wisdom and benevolence, stands forth 
conspicuously in the rotation of the planets upon their 
axes. Had the system been the result of fortuity, or 
mere chance, we might reasonably have expected to 
find among so many globes, all differing in their sizes, 
densities and distances, a similar diversity of rotation. 
Some might have revolved upon axes that perpetually 
shifted their direction; a condition that would have 
destroyed all regular succession both of seasons, and of 
day and night ; so that those upon them who one week 
rejoiced in the sunshine and luxuriance of the tropics, 
might the next find themselves locked up in the ice 
and darkness of the arctic circle. Some might have 
revolved upon axes, pointing, as at present, always in 
the same direction, but lying in or nearly in the plane 
of the ecliptic ; an adjustment that would produce re- 
sults exactly equivalent to transferring the climate and 
condition of the poles to the equator, and those of the 
equator to the poles, with every revolution in their 
orbits. Some might have rotated upon axes always 
pointing to the sun, an arrangement that would have 
kept one hemisphere in perpetual daylight, and left the 
other in eternal darkness. Some might have turned so 
slowly upon their axes as to give only three, four, or 
half a dozen days in the year; and others so swiftly as 
to produce days and nights so brief and hasty, as to be 



314 THE FOURTH DAY. 

unsuitable for rest or labor. But in the existing condi- 
tion of the system we discover nothing of this sort ; not 
one of all the planets has been found to rotate in either 
of these ways, or in anything approaching them ; all 
alike revolve on axes of such a small inclination, from a 
perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, as gives them 
an agreeable change of seasons, and in periods that 
afford a suitable interchange of day and night. How 
then has this happy arrangement come to prevail 
throughout the system ? Whence this fitting inclina- 
tion of all the axes ? Supposing chance gave to the 
axis of one, or two, this degree of inclination, is it 
likely that the axes of all were set at a similar angle 
by chance ? Or, if chance assigned to one or two a 
proper inclination of axis, and a suitable speed of rota- 
tion, was it chance still that gave both these to all 
of them? Surely, the designing mind and working 
hand of the Great Architect could not have been more 
clearly manifested than they are in this axial adjust- 
ment of all the planets. 

We discover design the most marked and undeniable 
in the degree of velocity given to each planet in its orbit. 
We have before illustrated by means of the string 
and ball how that the centrifugal force of every planet, 
and the force of the sun's gravitation upon it, are 
always equal.* Hence it is demonstrable that any one 
of the planets might have been set in motion at a 
speed either too high, or too low to follow its intended 

* See p. 247. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 315 

path. Any one of them might have been started in 
its present orbit at a velocity too small to carry it even 
once round the sun, his gravitation so far transcending 
its centrifugal impulse as to draw it down to his sur- 
face. On the other hand, any one of the planetary 
globes might have commenced its career with a velocity 
so great as would have greatly elongated its orbit, and 
thus have crossed the orbits of others, and become ex- 
posed to the terrific catastrophy of collision with them; 
or might have been projected even at a velocity that 
would have carried it beyond the utmost bound of the 
system. Had Mercury received the tardy rate of Nep- 
tune, a few days would have sufficed to precipitate it 
into the sun; and had Neptune received the high 
velocity of Mercury, it would have plunged into the 
depths of infinite space never to return. To preserve 
their present safe and harmonious orbits, every planet 
must have received the exact impulse that would 
communicate to it its present velocity, and that impulse 
must have been given exactly at such an angle. One, 
and only one velocity, and that given in one, and only 
one direction, would have produced the present orbits 
of the planets. Here, then, it would be folly to ask, 
Could chance have thus measured these impulses, these 
angles, these velocities, with infallible exactness? or 
thus undeviatingly balance the mighty forces of gravi- 
tation and centrifugal impulse to a hundred different 
worlds — different in their magnitudes, in their masses, 
and in their distances? Here every sane mind is 



316 THE FOURTH DAY. 

brought instinctively to the conclusion — Omniscience 
and Omnipotence alone were equal to the task. 

We have evidence of design, foresight and calcula- 
tion, conclusive as a geometrical demonstration, in the 
adjustments by which the stability of the solar system, as 
a whole, is maintained. The planets as they move in 
their orbits of necessity attract one another, according 
to the universal law of gravitation. When at their 
nearest distances from one another these disturbances 
become perceptible and calculable; and though they 
are comparatively small, yet if they went on increasing 
with every recurrence, they would, in the course of 
time, inevitably disturb and destroy the system. When 
this was first observed by Sir Isaac Newton, he became 
alarmed for its safety, and thought that nothing but 
the direct interposition of the Almighty could save it. 
But as the science of physical astronomy advanced, 
mathematicians became able to calculate and prove 
that, these perturbations, after reaching a certain 
amount or degree, gradually decreased until they came 
back to the point from which they started ; that is, 
that they were periodical, or oscillatory. Every planet 
after leaving, through these disturbing attractions, its 
regular path for a certain time, returns slowly to that 
path, deviates from it on the other side, and again re- 
turns and passes to its former limit. Saturn thus re- 
turns in a period of 929 years ; and Jupiter in nearly 
the same period. Although these oscillations in some 
cases occupy thousands of years, yet they are not less 



THE FOURTH DAY. 317 

sure and fixed than the pendulum, whose regulated 
motion marks a second of time. Now all this, as Lap- 
lace and Lagrange have demonstrated, is secured by 
three specific and distinct adjustments, namely, the 
motions of all the planets being in the same direction, 
their orbits being of small eccentricity, and those orbits 
being slightly inclined to each other. Upon these 
three things, under the Supreme Ruler, hang the stabil- 
ity and permanence of the whole system. What a 
marvellous revelation have we in this fact ! Here are 
scores of great globes, the distance, mass and velocity 
of every one of them must be in their exact propor- 
tions ; every one must move in the same direction ; 
every one must have its orbit set at so many degrees 
of inclination to all the rest ; and every one must be 
bound to such an amount of eccentricity. An error in 
one particular might have destroyed the whole. If the 
eccentricity of Jupiter alone, according to Whewell, 
were increased to that of Mercury, the security for the 
stability of the system would disappear. What stronger 
evidence, then, of care and foresight; or what more 
conclusive demonstration of profound skill and design 
could possibly have been given or desired ? Who can 
contemplate this proof of the beauty and perfection of 
the planetary system, and not bow in reverence and 
adoration before the Omniscient Architect of the 
heavens, saying, " Great and marvellous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty; thou art wonderful in counsel 
and excellent in working !" 



318 THE FOURTH DAY. 

That the Planetary System, then, is the production 
of a Being of infinite wisdom and power, cannot be 
doubted. Equally evident and certain is it that the 
same adorable Creator presides continually over it, 
actuating and guiding its every movement. We have 
more than once applied to this system the term 
Machinery, but it is machinery totally different from 
every human production that receives that name. 
The planetary mechanics are of such exquisite perfec- 
tion, and their parts move and act upon one another 
upon principles that render them wholly dissimilar 
from every contrivance and fabrication of man. In 
our machinery every thing goes on by contact and 
impulse ; pressure and force by cogs, rods, belts, water, 
wind, steam, etc., are the means by which motion is 
transferred to and from every wheel, lever, and spring. 
But in the machinery of the heavens, we discover 
nothing of all this. Here we behold spheres, enormous 
spheres in free and boundless space, without any mate- 
rial or visible connection, separated by spaces that can 
only be estimated by millions of miles, yet affecting 
one another powerfully, constantly, and infallibly. 
Here are worlds on worlds of every magnitude, and 
placed at every distance — planets, and rings, and 
satellites — all in ceaseless rotation, and all careering 
through the trackless void with velocities appalling to 
contemplate, without any visible power or agency to 
produce their motions, or to guide them in their un- 
marked and mighty circuits ; yet every one completing 



THE FOURTH DAY. 319 

its daily rotation, and accomplishing its annual round 
of hundreds of millions of miles, without deviating the 
fraction of a minute from age to age, and from century 
to century. Here is mechanism the most sublime, 
mechanism worthy the Divine Architect ! 

These stupendous evolutions all, as commonly viewed 
and expressed, are effected by the laws of nature, the 
laws of motion and gravitation ; and multitudes there 
are who never look beyond or above these laws for any 
other power or agency as being concerned in them. 
Their conception seems to be, that at some distant 
period in eternity past, which cannot be defined, the 
Deity, by a single act of His will, caused the whole 
universe to start forth into existence, that He im- 
pressed all the substances which He created with their 
respective self-acting properties or laws, that He then 
left the universe to the government of these laws, and 
has continued ever since an inactive spectator of the 
works of His hands. But such an idea, however 
popular, when sifted, must appear as unphilosophical 
as it is unscriptural. Let us analyze it. What is 
Law? Simply, as every one must admit, a Eule 
prescribing a course of conduct or action. A law, 
then, is not an efficient agent or force, and, therefore, 
can do nothing, effect nothing. And certainly matter 
— the dead, dark, cold, unconscious materials of the 
planets can of themselves do nothing; can pursue no 
end, change no direction, produce no motion. If, 
therefore, neither the laws, nor the planets upon which 



320 T HE FOURTH DAY. 

those laws are said to be impressed, can do or effect 
anything, who or what produces their mathematically 
exact and harmonious motions? Here is an effect, 
and a most marvellous one — where is the cause ? 
Taking law in its proper and only intelligible sense, 
we are soon conducted to the efficient Cause of all. 
" Law," says Whewell, " implies an agent, and a power, 
for it is the mode according to which any agent pro- 
ceeds, the order according to which the power acts. 
Without the presence of such an agent, of such a 
power, conscious of the relations on which the law 
depends, producing the effects which the law prescribes, 
the law can have no efficacy. Hence, we infer that 
the Intelligence by which the law is ordained, the 
power by which it is put in action, must be present at 
all times and in all places where the effects of the law 
occur ; that thus the knowledge and the agency of the 
Divine Being pervade every portion of the universe, 
producing all action and passion, all permanence and 
change. The laws of nature are the laws which He in 
his wisdom prescribes to His own acts ; His universal 
presence is the necessary condition of any course of 
events, His universal agency the only origin of any 
efficient force." 

This is the correct view of the Laws of Nature and 
the Divine Agency; and this has been the view 
entertained by the profoundest students of the works 
of creation. Sir Isaac Newton, in his Optics, declares 
that the various operations and evolutions of nature 



THE FOURTH DAY. 321 

"can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom 
and skill of a powerful ever-living Agent, who, being 
in all places, is more able by his will to move the 
bodies within his boundless uniform sensorium, and 
thereby to form and reform the parts of the universe, 
than we are by our will to move the parts of our own 
bodies." And Clarke, the friend and disciple of New- 
ton, says, "All things which we commonly say are the 
effects of the natural powers of matter and the laws of 
motion are, indeed, the effects of God's acting upon 
matter continually and at every moment." Sir John 
Herschell expresses himself of the same sentiment — 
" The laws of nature, however general, are the laws 
which God, in His wisdom, is pleased to prescribe to 
His own agency. We would no way be understood to 
deny the constant exercise of His direct power in 
maintaining the system of nature; or the ultimate 
emanation of every energy which material agents 
exert, from His immediate will." So also McCosh, in 
his Divine Government — " Speaking correctly and 
philosophically, the general laws of nature are just 
rules which God has laid down for the regulation of 
His own procedure." Dr. John Harris, speaking in 
his Pre- Adamite Earth on this subject, says, " We 
believe that the same power which originated matter 
with all its properties, maintains it in operation by a 
constant regular volition, acting according to estab- 
lished laws." Dugald Stewart holds similar language 

— "All the events which are continually taking place 
21 



322 THE FOURTH DAY. 

in the different parts of the material universe are the 
immediate effects of the Divine Agency." To the 
foregoing, quotations of the same import might be 
added from the writings of Bacon, Pascal, Boyle, and 
many others; but we shall add one only, from Sir 
Thomas Browns — " I call the effects of nature, the 
works of God, whose hand and instrument she only is ; 
and, therefore, to ascribe His actions unto her, is to 
devolve the honor of the principal agent upon the 
instrument, which, if with reason we may do, then let 
our hammers rise up and boast that they have built 
our houses, and the pen receive the honor of our 
writings. " Such are the devout views and feelings 
of these great men — men whose names know no supe- 
riors in the history of science, and who have called 
forth the highest admiration of mankind for their great 
intellectual powers. 

We return, then, to our great Planetary System, 
ascribing its creation in the beginning, its preservation 
through the ages, and its movements all through every 
moment to the direct and immediate agency of the 
Great God. Its light, its motions, its existence, owe 
their continuance to Him. It is His right hand, under 
the name of " attraction," that holds the planets from 
forsaking the sun ; and His left, under that of " centri- 
fugal force," that keeps them from approaching Him. 
What we call " rotation " is but His agency whirling 
them upon their axes; and what we term their 
" velocity," is but His power carrying them forward in 



THE FOURTH DAY. 323 

their orbits. The perfection of their movements is 
the perfection of His operations; and their ceaseless 
evolutions the sensible manifestations of the ceaseless 
emanation of His power, by which they are produced. 
" By the word of His power all things consist." And 
as our image vanishes the instant we withdraw from 
the mirror, so would the motions and magnificence, the 
beauty and harmony, of this great system vanish in a 
moment were God to withdraw from it His supporting 
and guiding agency. In Him all in the heavens, and 
all upon the earth, live and move and have their being. 

KEFLECTIONS. 

From the scene of power and wisdom we have now 
surveyed, we may learn a lesson of trust — of calm and 
peaceful confidence in God our Father. What we have 
just seen of His works, and of His universal and 
omnipotent agency, may serve to convince and impress 
us, that what He hath promised He is able to perform ; 
and that what He hath purposed He will surely accom- 
plish. 

Hath He promised the safety of his church, and the 
spread of the gospel, until the kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdom of His dear Son ? Even so 
then shall it be. All the rank, and learning, and 
influence, and philosophy of the world shall not be 
able to overthrow it. Let power lift up its arm, 
authority promulgate its edicts, bigotry muster its 
hosts, intolerance point its enmity, and persecution 



324 THE FOURTH DAY. 

open its dungeons and kindle its fires, to stay its 
onward march, it will all be but as though a swarm of 
bees arose to arrest the majestic orb of Jupiter in its 
revolution; for the power that bears onward that 
mighty globe in its course, is engaged, is pledged, to 
impel this chariot of salvation through all the world. 
Hath He promised to watch over the humble 
believer in his word, and to conduct him in safety 
through a world of sin and sorrow ? He is able to do 
it, and He will do it. Why doubt it ? The mighty 
globes of matter we have now surveyed, and over 
which He exercises such unremitting care, have all 
been formed for the service, the welfare, and the happi- 
ness of His intelligent creatures. Does He then care 
for these their mere habitations, and will He overlook, 
or forget, or neglect those intelligences themselves? 
Never. 

" Behold this midnight splendor, worlds on worlds ; 
Ten thousand add, and twice ten thousand more ; 
Then weigh the whole : one soul outweighs them all, 
And calls the seeming vast magnificence 
Of unintelligent creation poor." Night Thoughts. 

Fear not, therefore, thou child of God ; He who con- 
ducts in safety each planet through the trackless void, 
will trace out for you the wisest and the safest path 
through this moral wilderness. The God and Father 
of all, who so balances the perturbations of a hundred 
worlds, through all the lapse of ages, as to produce 
universal harmony and security, can, and will, accord- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 325 

ing to his promise, over-rule all things to work together 
for good to them that love Him. 

Hath He said, " Him that believeth in me will I 
raise up at the last day ?" Then let my body descend 
to the grave — let my members perish and mingle with 
the soil — let my dust be scattered to the four winds of 
heaven, His holy eye will keep unslumbering watch 
over all. I care not for the incredulity of the Sad- 
ducee, nor for the sneers of the sceptic, nor for all the 
difficulties of the chemist — He who could call this 
magnificent system of worlds out of nothing, can find 
no difficulty in calling my body from the grave. He 
who could aggregate atoms into planets and satellites, 
can be at no loss to assemble my scattered dust, 
whether hidden in the sepulchre, or merged in the 
depths of the sea. He, who, with a word, could kindle 
up the sun in the splendor of his glories, can also, 
with a word, call forth my mortal remains, and refashion 
them into a form lovely and glorious as that of the 
Sun of Righteousness. The promise of all this is gone 
out of His mouth, and " sooner shall heaven and earth 
pass away than that one jot or tittle of it should fail."' 

COMETS. 
He worheth signs and wonders in Heaven. 

To the Solar System belongs another class of bodies 
than planets and satellites, and differing from them in 
almost every respect— these are Comets, or Hairy Stars, 



326 THE FOURTH DAY. 

so-called because their long and hazy tails sometimes 
resemble flowing hair. These are very numerous ; not 
less than 700 have been astronomically observed ; and 
it is believed that many hundreds more escape observa- 
tion, by reason of their paths traversing only that 
part of the heavens which is above the horizon in the 
day-time. 

Comets consist of a large and more or less splendid 
nebulous mass of light, called the head, which is 
usually much brighter towards its centre, and presents 
the appearance of a vivid nucleus, like a star or planet. 
From the head, and commonly in a direction opposite 
to that in which the sun is situated, diverge two 
streams of light, which grow broader and more diffused 
at a distance from the head, and which generally unite 
a little behind it, but sometimes continue distinct. 
Many of the brightest comets, however, have but short 
and feeble tails ; and a few exhibit no vestige of any. 
On the other hand, instances are not wanting of 
comets furnished with many tails; that of 1823 had 
two, one turned toward the sun, and the other from 
him; while the comet of 1744 had no less than six, 
spreading out like an immense fan. These tails are 
sometimes of enormous length ; the last named ex- 
tended to a distance of more than 20,000,000 of miles. 
The comet of 1680, according to Sir Isaac Newton, in 
the space of two days after its perihelion, shot from its 
body a tail not less than 60,000,000 of miles in length ; 
whilst that of March, 1843, had a train of light 



THE FOURTH DAY. 327 

stretching away from the nucleus to the astonishing 
distance of 200,000,000 of miles. These tails occa- 
sionally strongly vibrate ; and, in some instances, have 
appeared as if agitated by the wind. 

The smaller comets appear only as round or oval 
masses of vapor, more dense toward the centre, but 
without any distinct nucleus, and the smallest stars 
can be clearly seen through the very heart of them. 
And many of the larger comets appear to be of the 
same character. Comets in general are bodies of such 
extreme tenuity, that the most unsubstantial clouds, 
which float in the highest regions of our atmosphere, 
must be looked upon as dense and massive bodies 
compared w r ith the filmy and all but spiritual texture 
of a comet. Even in the larger and brighter ones, 
what seems to the naked eye a nucleus, is found, when 
viewed through a powerful telescope, to possess no 
solidity; though in some, it is true, a very minute 
stellar point even then remains, indicating the exist- 
ence of something more substantial. In all probability, 
however, comets have a great variety of structure, and 
among them may very possibly be bodies of widely 
different physical constitution ; and there is no doubt 
that one and the same comet, at different epochs, 
undergoes great changes, both in the disposition of its 
materials, and in their physical state. Halley's comet 
in 1835-36, presented at one time the appearance of a 
fan-shaped flame, proceeding from a bright point ; at 
another time it was like a red-hot coal of an oblong 



328 TEE FOURTH DAY. 

form; at another time it was seen as a well-defined 
disk, with an apparent diameter of not less than 97,000 
miles; and at another time as a brilliant kernel of 
light, with a diameter varying from 250 to 1000 miles. 
Biela's comet was actually seen to separate itself into 
two distinct comets, which, after thus parting company, 
continued to journey along amicably through an arc of 
70° of their apparent orbit. During this separation, 
very remarkable changes were observed to be going on 
in both, as they increased and declined alternately in 
brightness. After being thus disunited for sixty-eight 
days, the comet appeared again single ; and after four 
weeks more disappeared. 

The orbits of the comets are extremely long and 
narrow ellipses, in which they move most irregularly 
and capriciously. Sometimes they remain in sight 
only for a few days, at others for many months ; some 
move very slowly, others again with the most extra- 
ordinary velocity ; that which appeared in the Spring 
of 1843, in one part of its orbit moved at the 
inconceivable velocity of 1,300,000 miles per hour! 
Not unfrequently the two extremes of slowness and 
rapidity of motion are exhibited by the same comet in 
different parts of its orbit. Some move from West to 
East like the planets, some from East to West in the 
opposite direction, and others in a tortuous and very 
irregular course. Nor do they confine themselves, like 
the planets, within any certain region of the heavens, 
but traverse indifferently every part. In many in- 



THE FOURTH DAY. 329 

stances, if they do not actually intersect, they at least 
pass very near to the orbits of some of the planets. 

The eccentricity of the cometary bodies is equally 
marvellous; at one period receding far beyond the 
outermost planet of the system; at another sweeping 
down toward the sun, and approaching him so closely 
as almost to graze his surface. The celebrated comet 
of 1680, coming back from a distance in space of 
44,000,000,000 of miles, approached the sun within 
one-sixth of his diameter; while that of 1843, at its 
nearest point, was only one-fourteenth part of his 
'diameter from his surface. What an extraordinary 
fact does this latter present ! Were the earth placed 
at this proximity to the sun, his fierce glare would be 
increased 47,000 times, and would pour a degree of 
heat upon it sufficient to melt into liquid and convert 
into vapor the hardest substances of which it is 
composed. 

The orbits and periodical returns of some thirty-five 
or forty of the comets have been calculated. That 
known as Enck's comet revolves in 3 yrs. and 3 ms. 
Biela's in 6 yrs. and 9 ms. Halley's occupies a period 
of 76 years in completing its mysterious round; this 
was observed by Kepler, good and great man ! thrice 
since he departed from our world has that wandering 
comet looked down upon us from the skies, beaming- 
each time with its misty ray upon the graves of the 
generation which last beheld it; its next return will 
be in 1911, and what changes will it again then 



330 THE FOURTH DAY. 

witness in our agitated and transient world? The 
period of another comet has been set at 575 years. 
" The comet of 1811, when it last saw the earth, saw 
it yet dripping with the waters of the flood." Others 
are supposed to occupy no less than 100,000 years in 
completing their revolutions ! 

Although modern science has thrown much light on 
the orbits and movements of comets, yet their nature 
and the offices they perform in the economy of our 
system are as much unknown as ever. In truth, the 
more they are studied, the more mysteries are de- 
veloped in connection with them ; a fact that led the 
celebrated Olbers to make the striking remark, that 
" the obscurity and unintelligibility of the nature of 
these extraordinary bodies are greatly on the increase." 
Yfhat the power is that, contrary to the force of 
gravitation, darts forth their vast appendages with 
such incredible velocity, and to such immense dis- 
tances, is wholly unknown; nor is it conceivable, 
says Herschell, that matter once projected to such an 
enormous distance should ever be collected again by 
the feeble attraction of such a body as a comet. What 
then becomes of it ? No answer can be given. Here 
seem to be forces in operation unknown to human 
science. In dealing with comets all earthly analogies 
fail us. " We look upon a planet, and we know some- 
thing of what we see ; we turn to a comet, and there is 
nothing that we can comprehend. The planets tell us 
of so many resemblances to ourselves, that we can 



THE FOURTH DAY. 331 

form some probable inferences ; the comets are utterly 
silent — or rather, they speak loudly of their Creator's 
glory, but in a tongue that no man can understand." 

REFLECTIONS. 

The cometary system opens before us a scene of 
creation of which we know but little, and presents 
phenomena of which we can give no account. What- 
ever scientific progress or achievements we may have 
made, we are here admonished to be modest and hum- 
ble, by being reminded that the unknown is vastly, 
boundlessly more than the known ; that before us is 
still an illimitable and unfathomable ocean to be ex- 
plored. There is something in the aspect, in the 
presence, of a sweeping comet, especially calculated to 
remind us that we are also in the presence of its glori- 
ous Creator. Here we experience something beyond 
the ordinary impression of grandeur — something fear- 
ful and peculiarly solemn ! He who can look up to 
these stupendous mysteries as an atheist or an infidel, 
let him withdraw from beneath the sacred canopy of 
the heavens, and hide himself in darkness and silence, 
as a living reproach to his Maker. 

The days have been when the appearance of a comet 
inspired universal disquietude and alarm, being taken 
as a sure prognostic of some direful calamity or disaster. 
Princes, popes and peoples were alike perplexed and 
terrified by the sight of these ominous wanderers in 
the heavens, as they glared down in their fiery splen- 



332 THE FOURTH DAY. 

dor, or gave forth their pale, livid, watery light, or 
extended their enormous trains like a bent and bloody 
sword athwart the firmament. But light at length 
has emancipated men from the bondage of this fear. 
We, of to-day, having better knowledge of the charac- 
ter and motions of these once portentous visitants, see 
that the alarm and agitation of our ancestors were 
groundless, and can smile at their ignorance while we 
pity their terror. But after all, do we not betray 
similar ignorance, and yield ourselves to equally un- 
founded apprehensions many times ? We cast an anx- 
ious eye over the firmament of our future, and think 
we discern in it certain omens of coming evil — of the loss 
of health, or wealth, or friends ; and thus suffer from 
similar fears, and perhaps to an equal extent with 
those who saw prodigies in the bloody hue or flaming 
tail of a comet. Are we not here in equal error ? For 
does not all this tormenting anxiety spring from igno- 
rance, or else forgetfulness, that the God who guides 
the planets and the comets in their courses, governs 
the affairs of nations and individuals upon the earth 
by wisdom and by laws equally infallible ? Certain it 
is that the worlds of human thought, and action, and 
destiny, no less than those resplendent worlds of mat- 
ter, hang upon the will of Him who worketh all in all. 
Superior intelligences, angels and the spirits of just 
men made perfect, who have larger and clearer views 
of the Divine administration, look down upon us, as 
we look back upon the ignorant and superstitious of 



THE FOURTH DAY. 333 

former days, and regard with mingled regret and com- 
passion our folly and disquietude. To them it is as 
evident as that every sphere in heaven has its fixed 
orbit, and comes and goes at its appointed times, that 
every change and revolution among men has its own 
wise and determinate direction, and that every event 
is brought forward in its due time and place. No 
sooner were announced to men the laws which govern 
the comets in their mysterious visitations, than they 
ceased to be dreaded or looked upon as prodigies ; so 
were we elevated to the light and faith of these exalted 
beings we should at once dismiss both our alarms and 
complaints. We should see that eternal "Wisdom mar- 
shals the great procession of humanity, directing their 
course through all the ages, embracing within His care 
all their interests, and accomplishing His purposes, 
whether they lie in ignorance, or slumber in apathy, 
or oppose in madness. We should discover that man 
is lifted up or cast down, that fortune goes and comes, 
that plans succeed or are overthrown, that health and 
wealth fade or flourish, according to the counsel of His 
will ; and that nothing is by chance, though many in 
their ignorance of causes may think so. We should 
see that the events and deeds of time are governed as 
well as judged by the laws of eternity ; and that as the 
vapory comets are wheeled round by the potent attrac- 
tion of the sun, so the plans and caprices of fleeting 
existences bend to the immovable Omnipotence, who 
plants His foot on all the centuries, and has neither 



334 THE FOURTH DAY, 

change of mind, nor yields to repose, in accomplishing 
for them His purposes of mercy and grace. 

In the history of Comets, or rather of their appear- 
ances, we are presented with a striking illustration of 
the all-embracing character of Divine Providence — how 
it works in patient and unfailing continuity from 
generation to generation, combining events the most 
remote in time and objects the most distant in space, 
and pressing into its service agencies the most insignifi- 
cant and influences the most transient, for the accom- 
plishment of its purposes. As all nature is a connected 
system, so we find that all events are parts of a connec- 
ted scheme. Nothing in either is found isolated or 
alone. The whole of the present stands related to the 
whole of the past. If we searched the records of 
history to find an event with which we are totally dis- 
connect, and to which we owe nothing, we could not 
perhaps alight upon one more likely to be of this 
character, than the fleeting appearance of a comet, that 
took place a thousand years before we were born. Yet, 
even to the appearance of such a comet we may be not 
a little indebted both for what we are and what we 
enjoy. In the providence of heaven, comets, distant as 
they are, fleeting mysteries as they are, have been 
made to contribute important influence in shaping the 
destiny of many nations, and therefore in shaping our 
own. They have, indeed, been prime actors in some 
of the most critical and decisive events in human 
history. They have dethroned kings, humbled popes, 



THE FOURTH DAY, 335 

emptied treasuries, subdued kingdoms, and turned to 
flight the armies of aliens. And strange at first thought, 
as it may appear, to comets the foremost nations of the 
world owe, in no small measure, their present civiliza- 
tion, politics, and religion. Let us explain this. 

In the year 837, when Louis le Debonnaire was on 
the throne of France, the comet, now called Halley's, 
made its appearance in the firmament. This monarch 
no sooner beheld it, than he concluded it was sent to 
announce to him new misfortunes ; to avert which, he 
exhausted all his resources in the foundation of reli- 
gious houses, in building churches, monasteries and 
nunneries, and in richly endowing them ; in this way 
he hoped to turn away that heavenly anger, which 
was so evidently, as he supposed, manifested against 
him. From that day forward, the influence of these 
great establishments was powerfully felt throughout 
the nation. At a later date, another splendid but 
alarming comet appeared in the nocturnal heavens of 
France, Charles V. being now its ruler; this prince, 
like Louis, made no doubt that it addressed itself to 
him, as being the greatest and most illustrious monarch 
of his time ; and it speedily brought him to the resolu- 
tion of abdicating his throne, which he did at once, 
and sought refuge in a monastery, hoping that the evils 
which threatened him as a monarch would not pursue 
him as a monk. Now, who but must perceive that 
comets, by creating and endowing so many religious 
institutions and inducing this change of civil rulers, 



336 THE FOURTH DAY. 

must have exerted a wide and prolonged influence in 
shaping the subsequent history, and in determining the 
present character and condition of the French nation. 

Halley's comet visited our system again in the year 
1456 ; and this time, found the Christians and Moham- 
medans engaged in a bloody conflict at the siege of 
Belgrade. Displaying its flaming length in the heavens, 
it at once arrested the attention and awed the minds 
of the combatants. Believing it to be a sign against 
the Turks, 40,000 Minorites rushed to the assistance 
of their Christian brethren, all unarmed, but each bear- 
ing a crucifix in his hand, declaring it to be a token of 
God's anger against the Mussulmans, which so intimi- 
dated the latter, that they turned and fled, leaving 
their wounded and slain upon the field, and abandon- 
ing in their flight the materials and treasures which it 
occupied years to collect. Thus did the Mohammedans 
experience a defeat, and their cause suffer a check, 
which, says the historian, it seems impossible to sup- 
pose they could have incurred, had it not been for the 
interposition of the comet. 

Again, history reveals to us the fact that one of 
these mysterious visitants exerted a potent influence 
upon armies and upon an empire with which we stand 
more immediately connected. In the month of April, 
A. D. 1066, William of Normandy crossed the British 
Channel, and invaded England. Just at that time a 
comet made its appearance, glaring down upon the 
Island. Suddenly the idea took possession of all 



THE FOURTH DAY. 337 

minds that its advent was the precursor of his con- 
quest. Men began to exclaim Nova stella, novus rex ! 
A new star, a new king. Arms and eyes were 
everywhere stretched forth toward the portentous 
sign; and Harold, the king of the Britons, himself is 
said to have gazed upon it with a saddened look. 
And this, more than anything else, we are told, crip- 
pled the energies of himself and army, and gave 
William an easy victory over him. But for this 
comet, then, and the superstitious ideas engendered by 
its appearance, who can say what would have been the 
fate of England, or the condition of the world, at this 
day? Certainly not such as it has been for the last 
800 years — probably something far less enlightened, 
less prosperous, less happy. 

We see hence, then, the all-embracing and all-con- 
necting character of the Divine Providence ; it combines 
the affairs of earth even with the revolutions of heaven, 
and times the recurrence of the one to the crises of the 
other ; employs the ignorance and superstition of one 
generation to open the channel out of which are to 
issue the light and science of another yet distant in 
the future; comprehends all agents, and unites all 
actions, into one unfailing scheme, to bring about the 
purposes of eternal wisdom. " His kingdom ruleth 
over all; and His dominion endureth throughout all 
generations." 
22 



338 THE FOURTH DAY. 



THE FIXED STABS. 

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of 
them by the breath of His mouth. 

In our outward flight through the solar system, we 
traversed distances, compared with which, all earthly 
measurements dwindled into insignificance; yet when 
we had reached the orbit of the remotest of all the 
planets, 3,000,000,000 of miles from the centre, we 
had scarce set foot on the threshold of the temple of 
creation. While we remain among the planetary 
worlds, we are among our near neighbors ; and while 
we continue within the limits of the solar system, we 
are comparatively at home in the boundless universe 
of God. If now we advance to the study of the fixed 
stars, those myriads of lights which nightly sparkle in 
our firmament, we must leave far behind the utmost 
bound of our own system, pass through dark and 
pathless regions, and pierce into depths of space, the 
very thought of which awes and overwhelms the mind. 
Among the stars we are brought to contemplate, to 
confront distances, magnitudes, and movements that 
convey the sublimest ideas of the Infinity of the 
Creator to which the human mind can ever rise. 

The fixed stars, then, do not belong to our system 
of the creation. They do not, like the planets, own 
the dominion of our sun; they do not circle round 
him; they do not yield to his attractive influence; 



THE FOURTH DAY. 339 

neither are they enlightened by his rays, but shine by 
their own intrinsic light. The attraction and the light 
and heat of our sun diminish, waste out, and become 
extinct long before those profound depths are reached. 
Nevertheless, attraction and motion, light and heat 
prevail among them, and are governed by the same 
uniform laws as they are among the bodies of the 
planetary system. 

That the stars are at an incomparably greater dis- 
tance than the planets is obvious from two simple 
considerations. The earth at one point of its orbit is 
nearly 200,000,000 of miles further from some of them 
than at the opposite point; and yet this enormous 
space makes no sensible difference in their apparent 
size. Again : the planets, when viewed through a 
powerful telescope, exhibit a circular phase or disk, 
capable of being magnified and distinguished into parts 
and features; Yenus and Jupiter can be made to 
appear as large as, and even larger than, the full 
moon : but no telescope can thus magnify the stars ; 
through the most powerful glasses ever invented, they 
are still but mere specks or points of light. These 
considerations alone, then, prove them to be at an 
inconceivable distance. 

For a long time the distance of the fixed stars was 
regarded as utterly beyond the calculation of man. 
The method used for computing the distance of the 
moon and the sun from us would not apply to them. 
The diameter of the earth afforded no adequate base 



340 THE FOURTH DAY. 

line for the calculation ; and even the diameter of the 
earth's orbit, 190,000,000 of miles, was found to be but 
little better — in passing from one extremity of this 
immense line to the other extremity, not the least 
change was observed in the apparent positions of the 
stars ; the keenest scrutiny could not detect the slight- 
est displacement among them. At length, however, 
instruments of sufficient delicacy and perfection were 
invented to mark a difference, though extremely small, 
and the human mind triumphed over what had so long 
appeared insuperable. In the year 1839, Henderson, 
a British astronomer, succeeded in calculating the 
distance of the star known as a Centauri, and found it 
to be no less than 20,000,000,000,000 of miles; a space 
which it would occupy light, travelling at the rate of 
12,000,000 of miles a minute, 3 yrs. and 7 ms. to pass 
over. About the same time, Bessel, a German astron- 
omer, determined the distance of the star 61 Cygni, 
which is three times that of the former, or 63,000,000,- 
000,000 of miles. Sirius, though the brightest of all the 
stars, is six times the distance of a Centauri, or 
120,000,000,000,000 of miles. The beautiful star called 
Capella, is at such an enormous distance, that it 
occupies light to travel from it down to the earth no 
less a period than 72 years ! Yet these are among the 
nearest of the stars; "the hosts of heaven" lie still 
immeasurably further in the depths of space. And as 
for those stars which are visible only through powerful 
telescopes, their distances are so inconceivably immense, 



THE FOURTH DAY. 341 

that their light must have taken a longer period to 
reach our globe than has elapsed since the creation of 
man; whilst rays of light coming from the stars 
composing one of the remotest nebulae, according to 
Herschell, must have been millions of years on their 
way ! These are distances which the human mind is 
utterly impotent to grasp. We can state them in 
words, and can exhibit them in figures, but the intel- 
lect of man can form no clear or adequate conception 
of them by any effort of which it is capable. 

Overwhelming — bewildering- — as these distances are, 
yet were it possible for us to wing our flight to the 
remotest of the orbs of light to which we have now 
adverted, whether to the East or to the West, to the 
North or to the South, it is not improbable that we 
should still see other myriads in each direction as far 
beyond. And were we to repeat such a flight to these 
again, the boundaries of Jehovah's empire, we may 
well suppose, would be yet unreached and undis- 
covered ! There is nothing in such a supposition that 
should be regarded as incredible; for He filleth 
immensity with His presence ; His wisdom and power 
are infinite; His plans are vast and boundless, and 
inconceivable to the minds of mortals. " Great is 
Jehovah, and of great power; His understanding is 
infinite. Behold the heaven, and heaven of heavens 
cannot contain Him." 

Distant as the stars are, astronomers have contrived 
to detect a number of interesting phenomena connected 



342 THE FOURTH DAY. 

with them. Some stars are observed to increase and 
decrease regularly in brightness, within fixed and 
definite periods ; these periods in some are only a few 
days, in - others many years. Some stars seem to vary 
fitfully in their magnitude and brilliancy. Others 
again appear from time to time in different parts of 
the heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary lustre, 
and after remaining awhile apparently immovable, die 
away leaving no trace. Many stars that once shone 
brilliantly in the firmament, are now missing. " Such 
changes in bodies so far removed from our system, and 
of magnitude so enormous as the least of them must 
be, naturally lead to the conclusion, that revolutions 
of vast extent, and operations conducted on a most 
magnificent scale, are incessantly going forward in 
those remote and inexplorable regions." 

Among the most wonderful revelations of siderial 
astronomy are what have been called double, triple, 
and multiple stars. When a telescope of considerable 
power is directed to certain stars, which appear single 
to the naked eye, they are found double, one star being 
quite adjacent to the other. Others, again, are found 
triple, &c. These are found to revolve around each 
other; that is, two, three, or four suns, together with 
their respective systems, revolve round one another, 
or around their common centre of gravity. This 
assuredly is a most sublime conception. What can be 
more august or overwhelming than the idea of resplen- 
dent suns revolving around other equally resplendent 



THE FOURTH DAY. 343 

suns; of suns encircled with numerous retinues of 
planetary bodies, all in rapid motion, around other 
similar suns, over immeasurable circumferences, and 
with a velocity surpassing all human comprehension, 
and carrying all their planets with them in swift 
career. Yet nearly 6,000 such systems of double stars 
have been discovered. 

A most curious and interesting fact connected with 
these multiple systems is, that one sun differs in color 
from the other suns in the same system. In some 
instances, one sun is yellow and another blue ; in other 
cases, one is of a crimson hue, while another is of a 
vivid green. What a variety of illumination two, 
three, or four such suns must afford to the planetary 
worlds circling around them ; what charming contrasts 
and grateful vicissitudes — a red, a green, and a yellow 
day alternating with a white one, and with darkness. 
One hemisphere of a planet may be illumined with a 
yellow sun, while the other is at the same time 
enlightened by a green ; and both may shine occasion- 
ally on the same hemisphere, producing such a blending 
of colors, and such a contrast of hues over the whole 
landscape, as to render the aspect of the scene com- 
pletely different at one time from what it is at another. 
In different parts of the planet's courses around their 
primary sun, these effects will be variously modified, 
so as to produce almost a perpetual variety in the 
scenery of such worlds. A sun of a brilliant white 
may be seen rising, while another of an equally 



344 THE FOURTH DAY. 

brilliant green is on the meridian, and one of crimson 
red just descending below the horizon. And when all 
are absent, the starry firmament will appear in all its 
splendor,' and every object around present a beauteous 
and pleasing contrast to its previous appearance. 
Here, then, are scenes of creation brought before us of 
surpassing wonder and glory. In the constellation of 
the Southern Cross is found a cluster of more than a 
hundred variously colored stars or suns, exhibiting all 
the various shades of red and blue and green ; and so 
closely thronged together are they as to appear in a 
powerful telescope like a diadem thickly set with the 
most glittering gems; w r hile all around are scattered 
those that look like drops of blood ! 

From the immense distance of the stars we are at 
once brought to the conclusion, that they must be 
bodies of stupendous dimensions, otherwise they would 
be altogether invisible from our world. It is demon- 
strable that our sun, at the distance of the nearest of 
the fixed stars, must appear only as one of the smallest 
of those visible to the naked eye. And this fact alone 
serves to show, that they must be globes at least equal 
in size and splendor to the sun, while many of them 
doubtless are vastly larger. 

Another thing that goes to prove that the stars are 
immensely large globes, is the degree of light which 
many of them shed. Experiments plainly indicate, 
that were the star Sirius and our sun placed at equal 
distances from us, that star would impart an amount 



THE FOURTH DAY. 345 

of light 14 times greater than that of the sun. The 
diameter of the star Yega has "been calculated to be 
38 times that of the sun ; consequently its bulk must 
be 55,000 times that of the sun. What a stupendous 
orb must such a star be ! The earth we call a large 
globe; other of the planets are hundreds of times 
larger; and the sun is 500 times larger than all the 
planets and satellites put together — what then must 
that body be which is 55,000 times larger than the 
sum of the whole solar system ! The bright star Lyra, 
it is said, would fill the orbit of Uranus, which is 
3,600,000,000 of miles in diameter. And Sir John 
Herschell gives it as his opinion, that there are among 
the nebulous stars those of dimensions that vastly 
transcend even this. Such magnitudes overpower the 
imagination, and completely baffle our highest effort to 
form a conception of them. Our inability to conceive 
of such mighty masses, however, affords no ground for 
disbelief of the facts. Scripture and science completely 
harmonize in the views they give of the Infinite 
Creator. u Great things doeth He past finding out." 

The number of the stars is equally astonishing. 
" Numerous as the stars of heaven," has been a pro- 
verbial expression from ancient days. Yet ordinarily 
there are not more than 1,000 visible to the naked eye 
at one time ; and not more than 6,000 in both 
hemispheres under the most favorable circumstances. 
But these are only the beginnings of the glories of the 
heavens. When the telescope is turned toward the 



346 THE FOURTH DAY. 

sky, stars before unseen come forth by myriads from 
the dark depths of space ; and as the power of that 
instrument is increased, other myriads still come to 
view ', and so on without limit. 

41 Come forth, man ! yon azure round survey, 
And view those lamps which yield eternal day. 
Bring forth thy glasses ; clear thy wondering eyes ; 
Millions beyond the former millions rise ; 
Look further — millions more blaze from yonder skies." 

The Milky Way, as it is called, is but a cluster of 
stars. Spaces of it not larger than the apparent size 
of the moon contain many hundreds of stars. " This 
remarkable belt," says the Elder Herschell, "when 
examined through a powerful telescope, is found to 
consist entirely of stars scattered by millions, like 
glittering dust, on the black ground of the general 
heavens." And Sir J. Herschell says that, in two 
hours 147,500 stars swept by his telescope ; and that 
in both hemispheres the number of stars that can 
be distinctly counted within this belt must exceed 
5,500,000. "That the actual number," adds he, "is 
much greater, there can be little doubt, when we con- 
sider that large tracts of the milky way exist so 
crowded as to defy counting, not by reason of the 
smallness of the stars, but their number." 

But the whole of the Milky Way is only one of 
those clusters of stars, called nebulae, that are scattered 
through space. Of these nebulae not less than 3,000 
have been observed and examined. Each of these 




TELESCOPIC VIEW OF NEBULA. 



THE FOURTH DAY. 347 

appears to be composed of stars as thickly clustered as 
the milky way. Of one of them. Sir J. Herschell 
says, " Ten or twenty thousand stars appear to be com- 
pacted or wedged together in a space not larger than a 
tenth part of that covered by the moon, and presenting 
in its centre one blaze of light." What, then, must be 
the number in the whole of that nebulae ? And, if to 
all the foregoing we add the stars of 3,000 other 
nebulae, or milky ways, what a boundless scene is 
presented to the mind ! 

The survey now taken of the distances, magnitudes 
and numbers of the stars, naturally suggests the ques- 
tion, What are these stars ? these millions on millions 
of luminous orbs, scattered above, below, and on every 
hand, through the depths of space? In a preceding 
paragraph we have spoken of them as being suns, each 
the centre of a system of worlds, like our own sun ; 
and analogy, all the analogies we have, favor this 
supposition. What else can they be? We cannot 
view them, being as they are the productions of infinite 
wisdom, as having been called into existence for no 
other purpose than to throw a tide of useless splendor 
over the solitudes of immensity. Nor can we suppose 
that they have been formed to give light by night 
upon the earth, for that would be absurd, as one small 
additional moon would give more light than they all ; 
besides this, there is comparatively but a small portion 
of them even visible to our world ; myriads of myriads 
of them lie far beyond the reach of the unassisted eye. 



348 THE FOURTH DAY. 

For what conceivable end, then, have these stupendous 
globes been created ? Like our sun, each of them is 
placed at an immense distance from all others 3 like 
our sun, they shine by their own light ; like our sun, 
they are globes of stupendous magnitude ; and, like our 
sun, as far as observation has reached, they turn upon 
their own axes — why, then, may we not suppose, that 
like our sun, also, each of them is the centre of a 
system, and gives light and heat to numerous planetary 
worlds revolving around it? It is true that we see 
not these planets, their distance is such as to render 
that impossible. At far less than one-half the distance 
of the nearest star every planet in our system is 
invisible, and the sun itself appears only as a diminu- 
tive star. To us, therefore, this may be the case of 
other suns and systems — the case of those immensely 
distant stars and their encircling worlds. Those stars 
that exceed our sun by many thousands of times, both 
in magnitude and glory, may be attended by splendid 
retinues of planets, exceeding in the same proportion 
every thing belonging to our system, and yet be 
altogether invisible to us. Why, then, should we 
doubt that each of these stars is the centre of a vast 
and magnificent system of worlds, similar to that to 
which we belong? This, at any rate, seems to be the 
most rational conclusion that we can form, and is the 
view entertained by astronomers generally. " Worlds 
roll in these distant regions," says the eloquent 
Chalmers, " and these worlds must be the mansions 



THE FOURTH DAY. 349 

of life and intelligence. In yon gilded canopy of 
heaven, we see the broad aspect of the universe, where 
each shining point presents us with a sun, and each 
sun with a system of worlds; where the Divinity 
reigns in all the grandeur of His attributes, where He 
peoples immensity with His wonders, and travels in 
the greatness of His strength through the dominions of 
one vast and unlimited monarchy." 

In surveying this broad and boundless aspect of the 
universe, and gazing into these immeasurable and awful 
depths of space, it is of pleasing interest to observe, 
that while mystery heavy and almost oppressive hangs 
over the scene, system is clearly discernible throughout, 
and law and order everywhere prevail. While all the 
visible objects of the heavens — suns, planets, satellites, 
rings, comets, nebulae — are all in ceaseless revolution, 
absolute rest being unknown in the material creation, 
yet nowhere within the utmost sweep of the telescope 
has there been discovered anything like disorder, 
chance, defect, or confusion. " It may be most con- 
fidently affirmed," says McCosh, " that nowhere within 
this extensive region, or in the long ages opened up to 
us by the time which light requires to travel from 
different stars, do we discover any traces of a chaos 
now existing, or ever having existed, or of worlds being 
formed by natural law, or of worlds only half formed 
or in the course of formation, or of any object 
overlooked, or out of place, or not in harmony with 
all the rest. As far as the telescope can carry our 



350 THE FOURTH DAY. 

vision, or enable thought to carry out its calculations, 
we find all the bodies already formed, already in 
harmony, moving on in their spheres as if performing 
some great and good office, and all so perfect, that our 
feelings are in harmony with the declaration of their 
Maker, when He is represented as proclaiming them 
to be ' all very good.' " 

REFLECTIONS. 

The siderial heavens present the most impressive 
and sublime manifestation of the universal presence arid 
agency of the Great God. As true philosophy unites 
with Scripture in attesting that all life and all motion 
proceed from God, wherever, therefore, we behold 
either of these, we behold a certain token of the Divine 
presence and agency. Now direct our eyes to what- 
ever quarter of the heavens we may, explore we the 
regions of the Nadir or the Zenith, look we to the East 
or to the West, to the North or to the South, and from 
the centre of the little globe upon which we stand to 
the remotest limits of telescopic vision, we behold a 
scene of perpetual revolutions and incessant activity; 
we discover the mighty power of God impelling and 
guiding planets, suns, and systems through every region 
of immensity. "He bringeth out their hosts by num- 
ber; He calleth them all by their names, by the 
greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power ; 
not one faileth." And this He has been doing for 
thousands and thousands of years, even from the 



THE FOURTH DAY. 351 

beginning, yet "fainteth not, neither is weary." 
Magnitudes do not overpower Him; distances do not 
fatigue Him ; multiplicity and variety do not bewilder 
Him. "While His mind is abroad over the whole vast 
creation, and His hands are employed in guiding its 
countless orbs, He is as essentially and intimately 
present in every one of them, as if it constituted the 
sole object of His attention; giving life to all its 
tenants, spreading out all its charms, and bringing on 
all the changes that enliven and beautify its scenery. 

" I am a Great King, saith the Lord of hosts ;" and 
the extent and magnificence of His dominions, as re- 
vealed by astronomy, prove Him to be such, indeed. 
Cast our eyes in what direction we please, or stretch 
our imagination to the utmost of its power, and we can 
tell neither where those dominions begin, nor where 
they end. It has been calculated that there are within 
the reach of the best telescopes more than two billions 
of worlds — a number so vast that, counting a hundred 
per minute, it would take no less than 40,000 years to 
enumerate them ! Yet, men of sober minds and pro- 
found intellects have advanced the supposition, that 
were even all these to be swept away into nothingness 
and oblivion, the universe of God would be still left in 
its greatness, and that its glory would suffer no more 
by the event, tremendous as it seems to us, than would 
the forest by the dropping of a single leaf! What, 
then, must be the whole realm of God? And if we 
advance still, and suppose, in accordance with what 



352 THE FOURTH DAY. 

seems to be probable, that the innumerable worlds 
embraced within His vast dominions have all their 
days and nights, seasons and years; that they are 
peopled with an endless gradation and variety of 
intelligent beings, who can reckon these days and 
years, and employ these seasons in the pleasing duties 
of mutual benevolence and united devotions ; that they 
are adorned with altars of incense and temples of 
praise ; that Divine communion is enjoyed, and hosan- 
nas ring through every sphere — how immense, how 
incomprehensible the empire of Jehovah ! How great 
He, who, with the word of His power, summoned all 
these into existence, set their magnificent and innumer- 
able globes in incessant revolution, and still upholds 
and guides them every hour, every moment! Who 
can gaze at the midnight heavens, and mark the 
myriads of their glowing fires, and not be moved with 
profoundest awe and reverence at the presence of Him 
who kindled and fixed them there, and for whose 
pleasure they are and were created ? 

The view we have now taken of the boundless 
empire of God, serves to set forth in the most illustrious 
and attractive light, His love and humiliation in the 
redemption of our fallen race. We have seen that our 
whole terrestrial abode is, in the vast creation, but as a 
leaf to the forest, as a single grain to a mountain of 
sand. Yet to save the insignificant occupants of this 
insignificant ball, God gave His only begotten Son to 
live among them, and to die for them. " God so loved 



THE FOURTH DAY. 353 

the world!" Herein were condescension, love, and 
mercy that must have amazed the universe. What 
was our little world, amid an infinitude of spheres of 
transcendent magnitude and splendor, that He should 
make it the object of such a gift ! And what was our 
race, our sinful and wretched race, that it should have 
thus awakened His pity and engaged His love, while 
songs of praise regaled His ears, and the incense of pure 
adoration delighted His heart, from the countless mul- 
titudes of innumerable worlds ! Had our globe and all 
that dwelt upon it sunk into eternal darkness and 
annihilation, it would not have taken one ray from the 
sun of His glory, nor one drop from the ocean of His 
happiness. And had He thus, in one moment, wiped 
it and them out of existence, as a stain upon the fair 
face of His creation, a holy universe would have 
approved and adored the deed as just. But wonder, 
earth ! and be astonished, ye heavens ! while He sat 
enthroned high above all, and reigned in glorious 
majesty over the magnificence of an unbounded crea- 
tion, He was mindful of the lowest and the least of the 
works of His hands. He would not have this one 
revolted world perish. Leaving " the ninety and nine" 
on the bright celestial plains, He came down to seek 
and to save " the one stray sheep." 

And the means by which our redemption was 
effected — how astonishing ! And how was this accom- 
plished ? It was not by a mere volition, or an act of 
omnipotence, such as brought our world and its inhab- 

23 



354 THE FOURTH DAY. 

itants into existence. Had our Father in Heaven, 
indeed, put forth His power, and created a new world, 
abounding with richer displays of His adorable 
perfections, and removed us thither from all our 
present guilty associations, to dwell evermore amid 
scenes of purity and radiant glory, in order to reclaim 
us to obedience and holiness — this would have been a 
deed of benevolence toward wilful transgressors that 
might have well awakened transports of joy among all 
holy intelligences. But not thus was our redemption 
wrought out. A Law unbending in holiness, and 
inexorable in justice, had been violated and dishonored 
— a Law demanding a mighty Sacrifice before the 
offenders could be released. Himself, therefore, as no 
other was adequate, willingly becomes this sacrifice; 
lays aside the glories which He had with the Father 
before the world was, descends to our accursed earth, 
takes upon Him our nature, labors and suffers for our 
good; subjects Himself to persecution and injury, to 
reviling and scorn, to buffeting and spitting, and, at 
last, to be, by wicked hands, crucified and slain ! 
This, this was the stupendous price of our redemption; 
and thus was it paid by Him, who, with His word, had 
created the earth, and by His Spirit had garnished the 
heavens. miracle of loving kindness ! Had such a 
sacrifice been offered to save from impending evil 
beings the loftiest in the scale of created intelligence, 
beings the most obedient and loving, beings the most 
innocent and holy, it would have been a display of 



THE FOURTH DAY. 355 

love worthy an anthem peal of ecstatic praise from all 
the heavenly hosts. But not for such worthy beings 
was it offered ; but to rescue the obscure and insignifi- 
cant dwellers of his footstool earth; to save enemies, 
rebels, wilful offenders, immersed in sin and guilt, 
and justly deserving his everlasting displeasure and 
abhorrence. Here, then, was love ! love which earth 
has no language to express! love which no burning 
seraph before the Throne can set forth, or comprehend ! 
God so loved the world ! The Just dies for the 
unjust ! With what sublimity of goodness, with what 
deep parental love and tenderness, does the work of 
redemption invest the Divine Character! "0 Lord, 
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! 
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers ; 
the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained; 
what is man that Thou art mindful of him ; and the 
son of man that Thou visitest him? All thy works 
praise Thee, and thy saints shall bless Thee." 

Begin, my soul, th' exalted lay, 
Let each enraptured thought obey, 

And praise th' Almighty's name ; 
Lo ! heaven and earth, and seas and skies, 
In one melodious concert rise, 

To swell th' inspiring theme. 

Ye fields of light, celestial plains, 
Where gay transporting beauty reigns, 

Ye scenes divinely fair ; 
Your Maker's wond'rous power proclaim, 
Tell how He formed your shining frame, 

And breathed the fluid air. 



356 THE FOURTH DAY. 

Join, ye vast spheres, the loud vocal choir ; 
Thou, dazzling orb of liquid fire, 

The mighty chorus aid : 
Soon as gray ev'ning gilds the plain, 
Thou, moon, protract the melting strain, 

And praise Him in the shade. 

Ye angels, catch the thrilling sound ; 

While all th' adoring thrones around, 

His boundless mercy sing ; 

Let every listening saint above 

Wake all the tuneful soul of love, 

And touch the sweetest string. 

— Ogilvie, 



SHte $$k iag. 



Fishes, Fowls, and every winged thing are created. 




THE FIFTH DAY. 

Genesib 1 : 20-23. — And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the 
earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, 
and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth 
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind : and 
God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, 
and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas ; and let fowl multiply in 
the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 



E have now advanced through four days of the 
creative process, and as the fifth opens upon us, 
the earth, that ere while was dark, without form, 
and void, is found a beautiful world — the heavy 
darkness has passed away, the waters are collected, the 
continents and islands are elevated and stocked with 
vegetation in all its variety, the pleasing alternation of 
day and night is established, the clouds float their soft 
and golden fleeces over the landscapes, the waters of sea 
and lake sparkle in the sun-light, and the rivers flow 
in soft murmurs or rapid currents along their new- 
made channels, while gentle breezes, enriched with the 
sweet odors of the fresh vegetation, are fanning the face 
of nature. But as yet there are no living tenants to 
behold or to enjoy the new creation; it is a scene 
without the breath of life. But to-day inhabitants 
shall be given to the ocean and to the firmament; 

359 



360 THE FIFTH DAY. 

fishes shall cleave to the waters, and the air shall be 
made vocal with the music of the feathered race. 

We have before observed that the creation was not 
only a progressive, but an ascending work; each 
successive stage introducing not simply something 
additional, but something higher in its nature and 
character. First we have the creation of matter ; 
second the aggregation and crystallization of matter 
into various rocks and minerals, exhibiting in beautiful 
forms and order the arrangement of the particles 
composing them; next comes vegetable organization 
endowed with a series of functions, operating in a most 
wonderful manner to promote the growth of the indivi- 
dual, and to secure the reproduction and continuance 
of the species; and now, we are carried forward and 
upward to what is far in advance of all this, namely, 
to animal organization, to creatures possessing the 
properties of sensation, perception and passion, and 
acting consciously and voluntarily to attain still higher 
ends. Here we are brought to contemplate a new 
principle in creation, that of animal life and its 
functions- — a principle full of interest, but at the same 
time full of mystery. " Every effort to penetrate into 
the mysterious temple of life in order to lay bare its 
principle has utterly failed, and the greatest philoso- 
pher approaches no nearer than the crowd." The 
living principle God has reserved as a secret with 
Himself. From Him and with Him alone are "the 
issues of life." We must, therefore, be content to be 



THE FIFTH DAY. 36 X 

ignorant of it, if not for ever, at least during the present 
twilight of our existence. 

In tracing the history of the preceding day, we have 
seen how " the heavens declare the glory of God ;" and 
in this, and that which follows, we shall discover how 
that the earth also is full of the riches of His wisdom 
and goodness. Splendid as are the monuments of the 
Divine power and wisdom displayed throughout the 
firmament, in objects fitted by their stupendous magni- 
tude and distances to impress the imagination, and 
overpower us by their awful grandeur ; no less 
impressive (though in a different way,) nor less replete 
with wonder, are the manifestations of these attributes 
in those smaller productions of His hands — the Living 
Tenants of our globe — which, being more on a level 
with our senses, and more within the reach of our 
comprehension, are peculiarly calculated to convince 
the mind, and affect the heart with a sense of the 
Divine presence and agency. Here we behold scenes 
of wonder and enchantment, not dimly or at a distance, 
like the planets and stars of heaven, but plainly and 
within the reach of close inspection and study. Here 
meet the eye, not objects of mere lifeless matter, but 
animated and sentient beings, free and conscious in 
the exercise of their powers, disporting in their native 
elements, revelling in the bliss of existence, and by 
their incessant gambols and exuberance of joy, plainly 
proclaiming the praises of Him, who, by His breath, 
created them, and by His providence cares and pro- 
vides for them all. 



362 THE FIFTH DAY. 

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life. A more literal, and, 
perhaps, a more correct rendering would have been, 
the rapidly multiplyiny creature ; the term is applied 
in the original Scriptures to all kinds of animals 
remarkable for fecundity, which, as we know, is 
eminently the case with fishes and birds. 

And fowl that may fly above the earth. The correct 
translation is, not fowl, but flying thing ; so that the 
original term includes all living creatures that can 
raise themselves into the air by means of wings, insects 
as well as birds. 

And God created great whales. The Hebrew word 
denotes not only the larger inhabitants of the deep, 
but also great reptiles, and amphibious beasts. 

And the waters brought forth the living creature that 
moveth after his hind, and every winged fowl after his 
hind. Hence it appears that fowls, as well as fishes, 
were made out of the water. Sprung thus from the 
same element, they each move as it were in an ocean 
of their own, and by the aid of similar, though not the 
same means. The operations of flying and swimming 
are strikingly analogous. The fish may be said to fly 
in the water, and the bird to swim in the air. The 
feathers of the bird answer to the scales of the fish ; 
and the wings of the former to the fins of the latter ; 
while the tail in both serves for a rudder, by which 
each steers itself through the waves of its own element. 

And God blessed them, and said, Be fruitful and 



THE FIFTH DA Y. 363 

multiply. That is, God gave them power to propagate 
their several species by generation, and thus to increase 
into a countless multitude. And it is in virtue of this 
blessing of God that all the animated tribes of the 
earth, air, and sea, have continued to multiply and 
increase to the present day. 

Water is pre-eminently the seat of life. No part of 
the surface of our planet is more fully peopled, or 
inhabited by greater numbers and diversities of beauti- 
ful, or strange, or monstrous forms, than the waters, 
whether those of the sea, the fresh lakes, the sparkling 
streams, or the stagnant pools. In every climate from 
the Northern to the Southern pole water abounds with 
its living tenants; and from the floor of the ocean, 
where its depths exceed the heights of our loftiest 
mountains, up to its ruffled surface, every successive 
stratum of its waters is crowded with its own orders of 
life. There is not a bay or a sound, not a rod or a 
foot of water upon the face of our globe, in which the 
power of the great Creator is not displayed, and His 
will executed, by some species of animated beings. 
The creative fiat of this day passed through all the 
depths of the sea, extended through all its breadths, 
and pervaded and animated its every drop. 

In the work of the fifth day, we have brought 
before us for illustration, whales and fishes, birds and 
insects ; or all living things that inhabit the water, and 
that fly through the air — a field as interesting as it is 
extensive to every devoted student of God's works. 



364 THE FIFTH DAY. 

WHALES. 

And God made great whales. 

The whale family embraces not only the animals 
commonly designated by that name, but also the 
grampus, porpoise, norwhal, dolphin, &c. These are 
remarkable creatures, as they are, correctly speaking, 
neither beasts nor fishes, but a connecting link between 
them. As to their outward form, place of abode, 
means of locomotion, and habits of life, they are in all 
particulars like fishes ; but their whole internal econ- 
omy is conducted on a wholly different plan, and 
nearly, in every respect, closely resembles that of 
beasts. Like beasts or quadrupeds, they have lungs, 
liver, spleen, and bladder, and like them, too, they 
have a heart with its partitions, driving warm and red 
blood in circulation through the body; they breathe 
the air, they are viviparous, and suckle their young. 
Thus all their internal parts bear a close resemblance 
to land animals, while they live wholly, like fish, in 
the oceans. It was, therefore, correct and appropriate 
in Moses to give them, as he does in this day's history, 
a distinct specification. 

These cetaceous animals are the most gigantic with 
which it has pleased God to people our globe. The 
hugest inhabitants of the dry land, even the elephant 
and the rhinoceros, are mere pigmies beside them. 
The cachalot, or sperm whale, often attains the great 



-.ii- 




THE FIFTH DAY. 365 

length of sixty or seventy feet; while the common 
whale has been found over a hundred feet long, and 
two hundred and fifty tons in weight. Every thing 
about these leviathans of the deep is upon a colossal, 
and almost appalling scale of magnitude. Dr. Hunter, 
who dissected a whale, gives an interesting account of 
its parts and organs. Its spinal column in strength 
and thickness may be compared to the trunk of a good 
sized tree, and which, in its thicker parts, is made up 
of massive vertebral blocks, bound together by the 
toughest ligaments and cartilages. The main artery is 
a pipe into which a full grown man might creep with 
ease ; and the heart is an engine of stupendous power 
and capacity, throwing out from twelve to fifteen gal- 
lons of blood at every pulsation. The mouth of the 
common whale, when distended, is capacious enough to 
engulf a boat with all its crew ; its mere tongue is like 
a vast feather-bed, on which half a dozen men might 
find ample room for repose. Equally marvellous is its 
great strength ; its tail is flattened out into a massive 
plate, which not unfrequently has a surface of a 
hundred square feet, and with a single stroke of which 
it can dash the stoutest boat into a mass of fragments, 
and scatter its daring occupants upon the waters like 
so many insects. Its motions are extremely powerful 
and rapid. When confined in shallows it will some- 
times leap out of the water, and come down with a 
force that churns it into foam. And in deep seas, 
when alarmed or wounded, it has been known to 



366 THE FIFTH DAY. 

assume a perpendicular position, with its head down- 
ward, and rearing aloft its tremendous tail, lash the 
water with terrific violence, and then plunge as with 
one spring to the depth of 4,000 or 5,000 feet — a depth 
where, according to Captain Scorseby, it has to sustain 
a pressure of more than 200,000 tons! The tempest, 
in the hour of its wildest uproar, is its pastime. It 
plays with the storm-vexed ocean, ascends the crested 
summits of its mountain waves, then, " like a cradled 
creature," lies amid their deep and dismal hollows, as 
if sporting with their rage. 

To the whale tribes have been assigned, as their 
more appropriate habitations, the polar regions of the 
globe; and very striking are the provisions which 
adapt them for their cold and frozen homes. The 
encasement or covering of the whale is of a singular 
structure ; it is like a vastly thick hide loosened and 
opened into innumerable interstices or cells, which are 
filled with oily matter called blubber. The blubber 
thus lodged in the meshes of the skin invests the 
whale with a covering that is from two to three feet 
in thickness; and no contrivance can be imagined 
better calculated to preserve the temperature of a 
warm-blooded animal exposed to the intense cold of 
the polar seas. This blubber covering serves also as a 
float to enable it to swim and even sleep on the surface; 
while it is of the most essential use to protect it against 
the enormous pressure to which it is subjected when 
travelling at great depths. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 367 

Some of the whale species live in pairs, and some 
are gregarious ; some are herbiverous, and graze upon 
the weeds at the bottom of the sea like cattle upon the 
meadows ; others are carnivorous, everywhere pursuing 
their prey, and often consigning to their capacious 
stomachs whole shoals of the smaller fishes, such as the 
clio borealis, at a single swallow. 

Whales possess the same general senses as land 
animals. They have the faculty of smelling; and 
their hearing is acute, even when immersed in the 
water. Their eyes are so placed that they can see 
behind as well as before and above, and that for a 
great distance. They also sleep. Divine goodness 
has assigned to them, too, their appropriate means and 
sources of happiness, as they sufficiently attest by their 
frequent and exuberant gambols. The whale is like- 
wise remarkably faithful to its mate, which returns 
an attachment that manifests itself even unto death. 
Parental love is also specially marked in this family. 
The mother and her calf may be frequently seen 
disporting themselves together in the water; and when 
danger appears, the mother either hastily bears its 
young one off to a safe distance, or defends it bravely 
against its enemies ; and chooses rather to perish with 
it than to desert her offspring. 

REFLECTIONS. 

The works of the Lord are perfect, and are all to 
the praise of His wisdom and power and goodness. 



368 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Even the huge frames of these leviathans of the ocean 
display the perfection of workmanship. Every mem- 
ber and organ, every fibre of the muscles that wield 
their ponderous bones, every vein and artery concerned 
in driving the vital fluid through their immense bodies, 
and every nerve and tissue down to those that can be 
discerned and examined only by the aid of the micro- 
scope, are finished with a delicacy and perfection that 
are inimitable and unsurpassed. Moreover, in the 
nature of these, monsters though we call them, the 
hand of the Creator has planted the same kind and 
disinterested affection, which ennobles the most exalted 
of His creatures that tread the solid land, and claim 
kindred with the skies. And to these instinctive laws 
of their being they are ever found faithful and constant; 
so that many of those bearing human form and name, 
may well go to the inhabitants of the dismal and 
frozen oceans of the earth, to learn from them the 
important lessons of conjugal fidelity and parental 
affection. 

FISHES. 

Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that 

hath life. 

Of fishes, properly so called, no less than 8,000 
different species have been examined and classified; 
and many more doubtless remain yet to be discovered. 
These are of all sizes,, from the enormous white shark, 



THE FIFTH DAY. 369 

weighing 10,000 pounds, and armed with his 200 
sharp and frightful teeth, down to the diminutive and 
harmless minnow. They are, moreover, of every 
shape and structure that can well be imagined. It has 
been said that the ocean contains representatives of 
every terrestrial and aerial form ; be this as it may, cer- 
tain it is that the forms of fishes are more singular, 
grotesque and monstrous than those of any other 
department of animated nature. Many fishes, how- 
ever, are creatures of exquisite beauty, both as to form 
and color. Some glisten with the dazzling brightness 
of silver ; some appear as if encased in burnished gold ; 
and some, as they glide through their native element, 
reflect all the varied hues of the rainbow. But of 
whatever form or color these inhabitants of the watery 
world are found, all are most wiselv fashioned for 
happy existence in the element and locality to which 
they have been assigned; while every peculiarity of 
form, and every varied tint or shade in each animal's 
structure, has been contrived and adopted with a view 
to some object important to its welfare, or essential to 
the end of its being. 

Had we never known any other living creatures 
than those of the dry land and open firmament, we 
should have been settled in the conviction, doubtless, 
that the functions essential to life could not be per- 
formed in such an element as water. To people the 
ocean would have appeared to us an impossibility. 
But in this, as in a thousand other things, we see what 

24 



370 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

is impossible with man is possible with God ; and find 
that He has contrived and fashioned an endless variety 
of creatures, whose forms and functions and faculties 
all are every way most happily adapted even to this 
element. Let us now glance at some of these adapta- 
tions ; and first at 

The Form of fishes. The external shape of fishes, 
in general, is much the same, namely, a sharp oval 
front, gently swelling in the middle, and then gradually 
narrowing toward the hind extremity. Now, this is 
precisely the form, as has been mathematically demon- 
strated, which encounters the least possible amount of 
resistance in cleaving the water, and consequently the 
best for swiftness and ease of locomotion. With such 
a form , and balanced by fins exquisitely adjusted to 
their weight and habits, and buoyed by an air-bladder, 
by the distension or compression of which they can rise 
or sink at pleasure, and propelled by a tail of powerful 
muscles, fishes are capable of motion, quick or slow, in 
every possible direction. The velocity and ease of 
their movements are worthy of all admiration. " No- 
thing is more graceful and elegant," says Kirby, " than 
the motions of fishes in their own pure element. Not 
to mention the shifting radiance of their forms, as they 
glance in the sunbeams, their extreme flexibility, and 
the ease with which they glide through the waters, 
give to their motions a character of facile progress, 
which has no parallel, unless, perhaps, in the varied 
flights of the swift- winged swallow. How rapidly do 



THE FIFTH DAY. 371 

they glide, and are lost to our sight by a mere stroke 
of their tail. At another time, less alarmed, how 
quietly do they suspend themselves, and cease all 
progressive motion, so that we can discover that they 
are alive only by the fan-like movement of their 
pectoral fins, an action which seems in some sort 
connected with their respiration. " 

We discover also in the Covering of fishes a most 
happy adaptation to their appointed element. Among 
land animals we see a great variety of means adopted 
for their protection, such as hair, feathers, bristles, 
wool, &c; but it is obvious that none of these would 
be suitable for aquatic creatures; their element de- 
mands a very different provision. Accordingly, we 
find fishes clothed in a complete suit of horny scales, 
each of which is a wonder in itself. These scales are 
sometimes joined at the edges, presenting exquisite 
specimens of Mosaic work; but most commonly they 
are imbricated, or arranged like tiles on the roof of a 
house, and are covered with a slimy substance, thus 
forming a perfectly smooth surface, so that the fish can 
move forward with the utmost ease. Every thing 
connected with this protecting provision is marked by 
the most minute and kind care for the welfare of the 
creature. His coat of mail is quite impervious to the 
water, and thus, though always immersed in it, he is 
never wet or chilled. 

Another striking adaptation in fishes is their peculiar 
Mode of Respiration. This they perform, not by lungs 



372 THE FIFTH DAY. 

like land animals, but by means of gills, which are 
formed of long pointed plates covered by a tissue of 
innumerable blood vessels. These plates are arranged 
like the plumules of a feather, and between them the 
water is kept in perpetual flow ; and from the air 
mixed in the water is continually extracted the neces- 
sary amount of oxygen for the renovation of the blood, 
which, thus purified, is carried into the heart, whence 
it is distributed to the whole body. By this extraordi- 
nary process, this Divine contrivance, the infinite hosts 
of fishes are enabled to breathe as easily in the water 
as we do in the air. 

The Organs of Sight in fishes present us with 
another remarkable instance of adaptation. We have 
already, in speaking of the whale family, noticed the 
admirable position selected for the eyes of fishes, so as 
to give them the widest range of vision. We shall 
now mention several other particulars. The eye of 
fishes is so constituted that contact with water, even 
with that of the briny ocean, is no more troublesome 
to it than that of the air to ours. Again, the eye 
formed for perfect vision in the air is very defective 
for this end in water. If we make the experiment, we 
shall find, however good our eyes may be, that we 
cannot see distinctly in water ; but if we put on a pair 
of convex spectacles, our vision will be at once 
improved, so that we can discern objects with distinct- 
ness even in that element. Now this modification of 
the sight effected by glasses, has been made by the 



THE FIFTH DAY. 373 

Creator Himself in the eyes of fishes, so that they 
enjoy the advantages of perfect vision. Again, the 
eyes of fishes, in general, have no lids; yet those 
species that, like the eel, bury their heads in sand and 
mud, are covered by the provident care of God by a 
fine membrane for their protection. But the most 
singular kind of eye, and that in which the forethought 
of the Deity is most conspicuous, is that of the analeps, 
a viviparous fish of the rivers of Eastern Asia ; the ball 
of each eye is divided horizontally into two hemispheres 
by a membranous band, and each half is a perfect organ 
of vision ; the two lower halves are near-sighted, and 
the two upper long-sighted; and thus the animal is 
enabled with one pair of pupils to see the little worms 
below it that form its food, and with the other pair to 
descry the great fishes, its enemies, while yet at a 
distance. These are striking facts, indeed ; but a micro- 
scopical examination of the structure of the eyes of 
fishes, reveals to us others that are, if possible, still 
more wonderful. The crystalline lens in the eye of a 
codfish, which is never half an inch in diameter, has 
been proved to be made up of more than 5,000,000 of 
fibres, which are united by more than 62,000,000,000 
of teeth ! 

Fishes appear to be endowed with the Senses common 
to land animals. Those of touch and taste are sup- 
posed to be feeble, in general; though some are 
furnished with flexible feelers, or organs of touch. 
Their organs of smelling and hearing are more acute, 



374 THE FIFTH DAY. 

and are in their structure happily adapted to the 
element in which they live. These latter senses have 
no external avenues, as in land animals ; for immediate 
and perpetual contact with the dense element of water 
would soon prove ruinous to their delicate and sensitive 
nerves. Smelling is said to be the most acute of all 
their senses. The olfactory membrane and nerves in 
them are of remarkable extent ; in a large shark they 
expand over a surface of no less than twelve or thirteen 
square feet. Hence, by this sense the finny tribes can 
discover their prey or their enemies at a great distance, 
and direct their course in the thickest darkness, and 
amid the most agitated waves. 

Possessing the foregoing faculties, fishes are not 
without a degree of Sagacity. They have been found 
even capable of instruction, and been taught to come 
when called by their names, and to assemble for their 
food at the sound of a whistle or bell. They are said 
to be among the most long-lived of all animals. The 
carp has been known to reach more than a hundred 
years of age. And Kirby relates that a pike was 
taken in 1754, at Kaiser si autern, which had a ring 
fastened to the gill covers, from which it appeared to 
have been put into the pond of that castle by order of 
Frederick II. in 1487 — a period of two hundred and 
sixty-seven years. 

Fishes excel in Strength, and seem to be capable of 
prolonged exertion without apparent fatigue. Even 
the feathered tribe, in this, must yield the palm to the 



THE FIFTH DAY. 375 

finny race. The shark will out-travel the eagle, and 
the salmon will out-strip the swallow in speed. The 
thunny will dart with the rapidity of an arrow, and 
the herring will travel for days and weeks at the rate 
of sixteen miles an hour, without respite or repose. 
Sharks have been observed to follow and play around 
a ship through its whole voyage across the Atlantic; 
and the same fish, when harpooned, has been known 
to drag a vessel of heavy tonnage at a high speed 
against wdnd and tide. 

Connected with the Instincts and natural Habits of 
fishes are many remarkable facts, but which we can 
barely mention. Some are herbiverous, and live 
entirely on aquatic plants; while others are carnivor- 
ous, and prey upon weaker tribes. As an illustration 
of the voracity of the latter class, we may mention, 
that at a public lecture delivered at Dublin, there was 
exhibited the skeleton of a^ frog-fish, two and a half 
feet in length, in whose stomach the skeleton of a cod 
two feet long was found. Within the cod were con- 
tained two whitings of the ordinary size, while in 
the stomach of each whiting were found numerous 
half-digested fishes, which were too small and broken 
down to admit of preservation. Some fishes are 
capable of uttering sounds ; the gurnards when drawn 
out of the water will croak oddly. Some can dart out 
of the water, and, like birds, sustain themselves in 
short flights through the air with their fins. Various 
species are wonderfully tenacious of life ; the carp may 



376 THE FIFTH DAY. 

be kept alive for weeks in wet moss; and the eel, 
taken and skinned, will leap out of the frying-pan. 
Some are capable of performing journeys even over 
land; "eels are in the habit of leaving the water in 
dewy nights, and wander about the fields in search of 
worms; in China, there is a fish that crosses the 
meadows at its pleasure from one creek to another, 
often a quarter of a mile asunder ; the flat-head hassar, 
a fish abounding in Essequibo, when the pools in which 
they live dry up, will resolutely march in droves over 
dry land in search of others, and using their serrated 
fins for legs, will push themselves forward as fast as a 
man ordinarily walks, always taking a direct course for 
the nearest water, though it may be altogether out of 
sight. Another species, found in Tranquebar, not only 
creep upon shore, but even climb the fan-palm, and 
seek their insect food among its leaves and branches. 
Very wonderful, indeed, are facts such as these, and 
most clearly do they prove that when the Creator gave 
their being to these animals, He foresaw the circum- 
stances in which they would be placed, and mercifully 
implanted within them an instinct for their guidance, 
and provided them with the means of escape from the 
dangers to which they would necessarily be exposed. 

Another notable fact in this day's history, and one 
specially demanding note and illustration, is the Fecun- 
dity of fishes. And God blessed them, saying, Be 
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas. 
This "blessing" is to be regarded, not simply as a 



THE FIFTH DAY. 377 

solemn word of command, but the imparting of 
reproducing energies to the varied tribes of the deep. 
And to see how effective this blessing was, we need 
but look at the results which followed. Nothing can 
exceed that "abundance" brought forth. If we at- 
tempt to estimate the number of eggs in the roes of 
various kind of fish, we may be able to form some faint 
conception of it. The roe of the cod-fish, according to 
Harmer's estimate, contains 3,686,000 eggs; of the 
flounder 225,000; of the mackerel 500,000; of the 
tench 350,000; of the carp 203,000; of the roach 
100,000; of the sole nearly 100,000; of the pike 
50,000 ; of the herring, the perch, and the smelt from 
20,000 to 30,000. Other species are equally prolific. 
Such numbers present an idea of fecundity that is truly 
overwhelming. It must be observed, however, that a 
large proportion of the eggs deposited are destroyed in 
various ways ; they are eagerly sought after by other 
fishes, by aquatic birds, and by reptiles, as food; and 
in the young state, they are pursued and devoured by 
larger ones of their own species, as well as by those of 
others. Still the numbers which arrive at maturity 
surpass all comprehension, as appears from the count- 
less myriads of those that are of gregarious and 
migratory habits. 

Impelled and guided by that mysterious power we 
call instinct, fishes, at certain seasons, migrate and 
travel in immense droves to seek a suitable place and 
temperature for the reproduction of their species. Vast 



378 THE FIFTH DAY. 

migrations take place from the ocean into all the rivers 
of the earth ; the salmon and others often ascend large 
streams in great numbers for hundreds and even thou- 
sands of miles. Vaster yet by far are the migrations 
that occur in the ocean from one region to another. 
The migratory tribes of the sea are very numerous; 
of these, among the best known is the cod; at 
spawning time these fish proceed northward, and 
frequent the shallows of the ocean, such as the Banks 
of Newfoundland, where they are found in infinite 
multitudes. The haddock resorts, in like manner, to 
northern coasts, and has been found in immense shoals 
of more than twenty miles long and three miles broad. 
The mackerel also is a migratory tribe ; these winter 
in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, from whence in 
the spring they emerge from their hiding places in 
innumerable myriads, and proceed to more genial seas 
to deposit their eggs. The thunny travels for the 
same end in numbers without number. But the most 
notable of all the migratory species are the herrings ; 
these, like many others, pass the winter in high 
northern latitudes, and, at different times through the 
summer, proceed southward in search of food, and to 
deposit their spawn. Some idea of their numbers may 
be formed from the vast quantities that are taken. 
Many years since, when the business was prosecuted 
on a more limited scale than at present, it was reported 
that on the coast of Norway no less than 20,000,000 
were frequently taken at a single fishing; and that the 



THE FIFTH DAY. 379 

average capture of the season exceeded 400,000,000. 
At Gottenberg, 700,000,000 were annually caught. 
Yet all these millions were but a fraction of the 
numbers taken by the English, Dutch, and other 
nations. But all that are taken by all nations, put 
together, are no more missed from the countless hosts 
of the ocean than a drop out of the full bucket. Their 
shoals, says Kirby, consist of millions of myriads, and 
are many leagues in width, many fathoms in depth, 
and so dense that the fishes touch each other ; and 
this stream continues to move at a rapid rate past any 
particular point nearly all summer. If, then, these 
single groups of a few species that happen to fall under 
the observation of man be thus numerous, or rather 
innumerable, it is obvious that the aggregate of all the 
orders, genera, and species, making up the whole popu- 
lation of the deep, must infinitely transcend all the 
powers of human enumeration ! Hence we see how 
has been fulfilled in these creatures the great command, 
which became to them the law of their being, Be 
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea. 

In the foregoing facts we observe this striking con- 
trast between the inhabitants of the water and those 
of the land — that where the latter bring forth one, the 
former produce a thousand, or even a million. If no 
check were provided for this extraordinary tendency to 
increase, even the ocean, vast as it is, would become 
overstocked; soon there would be in it no room for 
motion; and in process of time its waters would 



380 THE FIFTH DAY. 

become a mass of corruption, that would prove detri- 
mental to the whole globe. Buffon estimated that a 
pair of herrings, if left undisturbed for twenty years, 
would produce a progeny whose bulk would equal that 
of the entire globe ! To restrain this rapidity of 
increase, and to avoid these evils, numerous oceanic 
tribes have been ordained to prey upon others, espe- 
cially upon those of the more prolific kind. And 
this leads us to notice another class of remarkable 
contrivances, namely, 

The means of attach and defence with which fishes 
are provided. These are as various as they are won- 
derful. The most common instruments of assault are 
teeth, and the most general means of escape is superior 
speed. The mouths of many, and even the tongues of 
some of the great monsters of the deep, are literally 
planted with teeth; so that whatever happens in 
anywise to come between them stands but a slight 
chance of escape. Some elude their enemies and decoy 
their victims by stratagems so ingenious, as almost to 
indicate reflection and contrivance; and thus they 
effect by cunning what they could never accomplish by 
pursuit. The fish vulgarly called the /Sea-devil, often 
six or seven feet long, possessing neither force of limbs, 
nor celerity in swimming, buries itself in the mud or 
covers itself with seaweed, and lets no part of itself be 
perceived but the extremity of the filaments that fringe 
its body, which it agitates in different directions, so as 
to make them appear like worms or other baits ; little 



THE FIFTH DAY. 381 

fishes, attracted by this apparent prey, approach, and 
in an instant they are caught, and go down alive into 
its enormous throat. Other species are armed as with 
spears and swords; the norwhal is furnished with a 
most formidable nasal horn, projecting from the upper 
jaw to the length of ten or twelve feet, and of four 
inches diameter at the base; this is wreathed in a 
curious and beautiful manner as it tapers to a point, 
and is* of a substance much whiter, harder, and heavier, 
than common ivory. The terrible sword-fish is simi- 
larly armed with a long bony snout, exceedingly 
sharp and strong, with which it transfixes its prey, or 
whatever offends it; it is the special enemy of the 
whale, and sometimes, mistaking the hull of a ship for 
this animal, it will plunge at it with terrible power ; in 
one instance it thus attacked an East-Indiaman with 
so prodigious a force as to drive its sword completely 
through the bottom of the ship, and must have sunk 
it by the leak, had not the animal been killed by the 
violence of its own exertion, in consequence of which 
the snout remained imbedded in the ribs of the ship, 
and no leak of any extent was produced. A fragment 
of this vessel, with the sword still buried in it, is 
preserved as a curiosity in the British Museum. Other 
species again, such as the hag, will dart at larger fishes, 
and adhere to their sides by creating a vacuum by 
means of its lips; this effected, there it remains in 
spite of every struggle, lacerating them with its teeth, 
and sucking their juices and their blood like the leech; 



382 THE FIFTH DAY. 

and when this animal is itself threatened with an 
attack, it has the power of exuding from its body a 
certain excrement, which, mixing with the water about 
it, renders it invisible to its foe. Again, numerous 
species of fishes are endued with the remarkable power 
of emitting sudden flashes of light, like the reflection 
of the full moon ; and when many of these enormous 
creatures swim together, they appear like a vast pro- 
cession of great lights moving through the waters, 
and present a singular and most startling spectacle; 
their phosphoric flashes are supposed to frighten and 
put to flight their enemies, and, perhaps, to dazzle and 
bewilder their appointed prey. Other tribes of the 
watery world are furnished with long snouts, fashioned, 
not like the blade of a sword or spear, but like the 
barrel of a gun, through which they shoot drops of 
liquid at insects and caterpillars they may see near 
them on the margins of lakes and rivers; and so 
accurately do they aim that they seldom miss their 
game. But of all the diversified powers and organs 
with which fishes have been endowed, either for attack 
or defence, the most wonderful is the electric battery, 
with which several species have been furnished, and 
by means of which they can smite, benumb, and kill 
other inhabitants of the water. In the torpedo many 
hundreds of pipes go to constitute its battery, and with 
which it can inflict an invisible stroke more to be 
dreaded than the teeth of the shark itself. The 
gymnotus or electric eel, is a more tremendous assail- 



THE FIFTH DAY. 383 

ant still, as its discharges are said to be ten times more 
powerful than those of the torpedo; even mules and 
horses adventuring into their waters have often been 
killed by these animals. They are able to send their 
electric shocks through the water, and, according to 
Lacepede, kill smaller animals at the distance of 
sixteen feet. 

REFLECTIONS 

We have now surveyed the faculties, organs and 
powers with which the Creator has seen fit to furnish 
the inhabitants of the deep, and w 7 hereby they are 
enabled to secure their necessary sustenance, repel 
their enemies or elude their pursuit, and fitted to keep 
the aquatic population, of whatever kind, within due 
and needful limits. And in these faculties and organs, 
what fertility of resources, what varied inventions and 
contrivances do we behold! How manifest the Divine 
wisdom, power and goodness, and how clear the 
providing and ruling agency of providence, even in all 
the deep places of the sea ! Deficiencies that would 
seem fatal are compensated by endowments that the 
mind of man would never have conceived; and diffi- 
culties that would appear insurmountable overcome by 
expedients, which both amaze and confound us as we 
view them. We see every creature happily adapted 
to its situation, however desolate or forlorn; and 
furnished with faculties equal to all the exigencies of 
his lot, however desperate. While all, all that move 



384 * THE FIFTH DA Y. 

through the deep paths of the ocean, whether harmless 
or destructive, devouring or devoured, glorify their 
Almighty Author, by doing or by suffering the wise 
appointments of His will. 

CRUSTACEANS. 

The great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable. 

Among the living things which the water brought 
forth abundantly, was a class of creatures which 
naturalists range under the above term, and which 
embraces lobsters, crabs, prawns, shrimps, sea-spiders, 
&c, animals that are encased in hard but articulated 
shells. Of the crustacean race there exist in the 
waters a great many hundreds of species, of which we 
cannot speak in detail. These are creatures of remark- 
able structure, complicated in form, and covered, not 
with skin or scales, but with a hard unyielding crust. 
They are furnished either with three or four pairs of 
legs, each composed of five joints curiously hinged 
together. In addition to these, some of the species 
have a pair of powerful claws, resembling the finger 
and thumb pressed together, for seizing and conveying 
food to their mouths. Many of them are also possessed 
of a greater or less number of long and slender feelers. 
They are, in general, creatures of active habits, keen 
vision, and acute powers of smelling and taste; and 
have their peculiar system of nerves, respiration, cir- 
culation, and digestion, each presenting, on close 



THE FIFTH DAY. 385 

examination, a system of wonders in itself. But here 
our plan compels us to confine our notice to a single 
species, the lobster ; and this must suffice to convey a 
general idea of all the rest of this class. 

The general form of the lobster is that indicated 
above. It has four pairs of legs ; the two anterior pairs 
are furnished with small pincers at the extremities. 
Besides all these, it has two claws which are very 
complicated in their structure, and instruments of 
great power, holding whatever they seize so firmly 
that it is impossible to extricate it without breaking 
the claws. Its antennae or feelers, which are about as 
long as its body, consist of long and slender filaments 
composed of a great number of pieces articulated 
together. Unlike many species of this family, the 
lobster is better formed for swimming than walking ; 
its tail is the principal agent used for this purpose, 
which strikes the water from behind forwards, conse- 
quently it can only swim backwards. The tail is very 
strong, one stroke of which will often carry the animal 
a distance of twenty or thirty feet. The lobster 
continues to grow through a good part of its life, and 
has been known to attain the age of twenty years. 

The blessing of fecundity and increase we find was 
effective in the crustacean, as well as in the other 
inhabitants of the sea. The lobster produces no less 
than 12,000 eggs ; these it carries concealed and pro- 
tected under its broad tail. As^ the temperature 
increases toward midsummer, small live lobsters are 

25 



386 THE FIFTH DAY. 

found among the eggs, of the size of an ant, which 
remain attached to the fibres of the mother, and are 
fostered there until all the eggs are hatched. Soon 
after, they detach themselves from these fibres, and 
cling to the roots and stems and leaves of marine 
plants, till they are sufficiently large and strong to 
abandon themselves to the waves. 

The solid casing of the lobster does not admit of 
increase or extension, so that in order to allow of the 
growth of its body and limbs, it is necessary that it be 
cast off, and exchanged for a new shell of larger 
dimensions. This is done annually, and is among the 
most wonderful of all the processes observed in the 
animal kingdom. Toward the end of spring, when 
food is plentiful, the body and limbs begin to expand ; 
" this goes on till at length it is productive of much 
uneasiness to the animal, which is in consequence 
prompted to make violent efforts to relieve itself; by 
this means it generally succeeds in bursting the shell, 
and then, by dint of repeated struggles, extricates its 
body and its limbs. The lobster first withdraws its 
claws, and then its feet, as if it were pulling them out 
of a pair of boots ; the head next throws off its case, 
together with its antennae; and the two eyes are 
disengaged from their horny pedicles. In this opera- 
tion, not only the complex apparatus of the jaws, but 
even the horny cuticle and teeth of the stomach are all 
cast off along with the shell ; and last of all, the tail is 
extricated. But the whole process is not accomplished 



THE FIFTH DAY. 387 

without long-continued efforts. Sometimes the legs 
are lacerated, or even torn off, in the attempt to 
withdraw them from the shell. But this animal 
possesses the wonderful power of speedily replacing a 
lost limb by the production of a new one from the 
stump." — Boget. 

After the whole shell is cast off, the lobster suddenly 
expands, and grows in all its parts full one-fifth of its 
former dimensions; but it is left a weak and most 
defenceless creature; its limbs are so soft that they 
bend like wet paper ; still it manages to crawl to some 
secluded retreat. And here we are called to behold 
and admire the kind care and provision of the Creator. 
For some time previous to the moulting, a secretion of 
materials had been going on, and laid up within the 
body of the animal, to furnish him with a new suit; 
these materials are now rapidly distributed over its 
every part, and within the short period of three days, 
are hardened into a perfect and complete shell like the 
former. 

REFLECTIONS. 

The moulting process in the lobster, and in all the 
crustacean species, is in all its parts and stages most 
wonderful, indeed. Here is a little creature, low in 
the scale of animated nature, taught to lay aside a suit 
of solid garments, from which it would have puzzled 
and baffled the intellect of man to extricate it. Here 
is a provision made prospectively for a new suit — a 



388 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

provision made to meet a necessity which the creature 
as yet neither feels nor foresees. Here is a suit of 
gelatinous and calcareous armour promptly fabricated, 
hardened and polished, after profound chemical princi- 
ples, yet without the least knowledge of that science ! 
Have we not here, then, the most convincing of 
evidences that the hand of God is concerned in all this, 
and that He is present even with every living thing 
that moveth through the deep places of the sea ? 

MOLLUSCANS. 

And God created every living creature that moveth, which the waters 
brought forth abundantly. 

The term molluscan is derived from the Latin word 
mollis, soft, and under it are classified an infinite host 
of soft-bodied animals, encased more or less completely 
in hard calcareous shells. These all are to be reckoned 
among the creations of the fifth day ; like fishes, they 
were produced out of the water, and in the water they 
find their appropriate abode. Of shell-animals more 
than 11,000 different species have been discovered and 
examined; and yet this number, doubtless, is but a 
part of what the great ocean contains ; for not only its 
shores and shallows, but even the floor of its greatest 
depths throughout, are paved with them. The living 
tenants of these shells seem to be endlessly diversified 
as to their sizes, forms, faculties and habits; while all 
present most interesting subjects of study to the pious 



THE FIFTH DAY. 389 

student, as so many displays of the wisdom and power 
and goodness of the Great Creator. 

The shells themselves are objects of rare interest. 
Their forms and organizations, are truly wonderful. 
Their colors, too, are often so intensely vivid, so richly 
disposed, and so fancifully variegated, that as objects 
of beauty they rival many of the most esteemed pro- 
ductions of the vegetable kingdom. In some instances, 
they closely resemble the work of art; the beautiful 
music shell has the five lines and dotted notes, as if the 
sirens had written upon it the music which constantly 
sounds within. In their outlines and configurations 
they exhibit an endless variety. Some are shaped like 
a cup or tube ; some appear in the form of cones, and 
spires, and columns; and others present the most 
graceful and delicate convolutions, and the most com- 
plicated articulations. 

Shell-fishes are distinguished as univalve, bivalve, 
and rnultivalve, according to the number of pieces that 
compose their shells. In some species, there are male 
and female shells; in others, both sexes are inclosed in 
the same shell ; while in others still, the two sexes are 
united in the same individual. Some are oviparous; 
and some are viviparous, their offspring are brought 
forth encased complete in their tiny shells. Some 
families are herbiverous, and may be seen grazing in 
large droves; others are predaceous, and watch and 
seize their victims. Some travel about, and some 
remain fixed to the same spot while they live. So 



390 THE FIFTH D>AY. 

manifold are the works of God even in this low 
province of animated nature. 

The univalve class are the most numerous of shell- 
fishes, and exhibit the greatest variety of forms. In 
general, they are more or less regularly of a spiral 
structure. Among the most curious of these are the 
rnurex, so highly valued by the ancients for its purple 
dye ; the volute or mitre, including those fine polished 
spiral shells, which so often ornament the chimney- 
piece, sometimes embellished with dots, and at other 
times with bands of various hues; the strombus, 
comprising the larger shells appropriated to the same 
purpose, spiral like the volute, but with a large 
expanding lip spreading into a groove, and projecting 
into lobes; the coivries, which have long been known 
and admired for their beauty and polish, and which 
form the current coin in many parts of Africa, and in 
several of the Asiatic Islands ; but the most beautiful 
of all this class of shells, and one of the rarest known, 
is the carinaria vitrea, which is of extreme delicacy 
and fragility, and nearly as transparent as glass, its 
owner is a sailor, and in it often skims along the surface 
of the deep. This, however, is not the only univalve 
that is capable of navigating the sea. The violet snails, 
as they are called, when the sea is calm, may fre- 
quently be seen collected in large bands, swimming 
gayly and happily together. The hyaloea genus will 
do the same, and when its beautifully colored little 
sails are expanded^ it moves with great velocity, like a 



THE FIFTH DAY. 391 

butterfly on the surface of the sea. But the most 
celebrated of all in this respect is the nautilus ; the 
shell of this little animal is lined with a layer of a 
most beautiful pearly gloss, and in the East is manu- 
factured into drinking cups; the nautilus has eight 
arms, two of which are furnished at the extremities 
with a thin oval membrane, which it can at pleasure 
raise and expand to the gale, while the other six 
stretch over the sides of the shell, and are used as oars. 
Impelled by the breeze, this little animal in its tender 
bark has the appearance of a vessel under sail, and 
glides with ease and grace along the surface of the 
deep ; when danger appears, it instantly furls its sail, 
catches in all its oars, turns its shell mouth downward, 
and by letting a little water into its hold, sinks into 
the safer and more tranquil regions beneath the surface. 
The bivalves are found to be headless creatures, and 
destitute of the senses of sight, hearing and smelling ; 
they are furnished, however, with gills, heart and 
nerves. To many of them has also been given one 
soft fleshy foot, which they can thrust out between 
their shells at pleasure, for the performance of a 
variety of operations;, by means of this humble, and 
what we would call a very imperfect instrument, they 
can turn and hop about, spin their cords, plaster their 
homes, dig into the sand, and even bore the solid rock. 
Of this tribe none are more beautiful, both as to its 
sculptured form and exquisite coloring, than what are 
called escallop shells. The most useful of bivalves, 



392 THE FIFTH DAY. 

though among the rudest in appearance, is the oyster ; 
this gift of providence is widely dispersed, being found 
on the coasts of Europe, Asia, Africa and America; 
and in these creatures, as in other inhabitants of the 
deep, we meet with a striking exhibition of the original 
blessing of fecundity, for a single oyster, according to 
Poli, contains no less than 1,200,000 eggs ! But the 
most highly prized of all this class is the pearl oyster, 
which is found in its greatest perfection on the coast 
of Ceylon, and in the Gulf of Persia; the internal 
lining of these shells is a very beautiful substance, and 
known by the name "mother of pearls;" the pearls 
themselves are roundish bodies from the size of a large 
pea downwards, valued according to their size and 
perfection of form, and are either attached to the 
shells, or loose between them; they are sometimes so 
numerous that the animal cannot shut his shell, and 
so perishes. 

Another rare and singular bivalve is the singing 
mussel. The melancholy but soothing music of this 
little creature may frequently be heard on the coasts 
of Ceylon on calm moon-light nights. At first it steals 
upon the ear faint as the evening zephyr over the 
strings of an iEolian harp, but soon it increases in 
loudness and sweetness, then changes into the same 
low tones again, and at last dies away at intervals, to 
be renewed as before ; thus vividly reminding one of 
the classic fable of the sea-nymphs and their powerful 
charms. 




THE CUTTLE FISH. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 393 

Bivalves are of all sizes from the giant clamp shell, 
which has been found four feet in diameter, weighing 
over five hundred pounds, and containing an occupant 
large enough to furnish one hundred and twenty men 
with a full meal — downward to those which are too 
minute for inspection by the unassisted eye, and which 
may be counted by the hundreds and thousands within 
the space of a single cubic inch, yet each beautiful and 
perfect after its kind, but which space forbids us even 
to name. 

With the molluscan order of animals are generally 
classed the cuttle-fish, octopos, loligo, &c, a most 
remarkable family, both as to their outward form and 
internal organization. The cuttle-fish, indeed, is one 
of the most wonderful of the works of God. It has a 
head furnished with very perfect organs of respiration. 
It possesses the faculties of sight, hearing and smelling. 
Its jaws are like the bill of a parrot, and from which 
its food passes into a triturating gizzard. And what is 
still more remarkable, its circulation is carried on by 
three distinct hearts instead of one. Its mouth is 
surrounded by no less than eight long fleshy arms, 
capable of bending in every direction with the utmost 
vigor and activity; their surfaces are furnished with 
numerous suckers, by which they can fix. themselves 
strongly to anything they wish to lay hold of; with 
these arms it can walk, or swim, or anchor itself safely 
to the rocks during tempests. Its jaws are of great 
power, and readily crush lobsters, crabs, and even 



394 THE FIFTH DAY, 

shell-fish. By means of the suckers on its arms, it 
lays such fast hold on its prey as to deprive them of 
all power of motion; and thus it masters creatures 
much larger than itself. Its eyes are large and promi- 
nent, resembling those of quadrupeds, and carrying in 
them an aspect of ferocity that strikes terror into every 
animal it pursues. In the Indian seas, the cuttle-fish 
attains formidable proportions, and its tentacles grow to 
a great length ; in consequence of which the Islanders, 
it is said, rarely venture to sea without hatchets in 
their boats, to cut off these cold and monstrous arms, 
should the animal attempt to fasten upon them and 
drag them under water. 

REFLECTIONS. 

The mathematical principles involved in the struc- 
ture of the foregoing shells are worthy of special notice. 
Conchologists have shown that the size of the whorls, 
and the distance between two contiguous whorls, in 
turbinated and discoid shells, follow a geometrical 
progression ; and the spiral formed is the logarithmic, 
of which it is a property, that it has everywhere the 
same geometrical curvature, and is the only curve, 
except the circle, which possesses this property. Fol- 
lowing this law, the animal winds its dwelling in a 
uniform direction through the space round its axis. 
There is thus traced in the shell the application of 
properties of a geometrical curve to a mechanical pur- 
pose. With "these aquatic molluscs, the shell is not 



THE FIFTH DA Y. 395 

only to be a habitation for the indwelling animal, but 
also a float ; and, this it becomes, by the portion of the 
narrower extremity of its chamber left unoccupied. 
But in order to preserve its buoyancy, and enable the 
animal to ascend and descend the water at will, it is 
necessary that the increment of the capacity of its float 
should bear a constant ratio to the corresponding 
increment of its body — a ratio which always assigns a 
greater amount to the increment of the shell than to 
the corresponding increment of the animal bulk. Now, 
it is in accordance with the geometrical character of 
the form assumed, that the capacity of the shell and 
the dimensions of the animal do increase in a constant 
ratio, causing the whole bulk of the animal to bear a 
relation of constantly increasing inequality to the whole 
capacity of the shell." * Such is the marvellous pro- 
cess of shell-building — a process carried on daily at ten 
thousand points along the coasts of every continent 
and island on the globe. Now, to whom shall we 
ascribe these profound mathematical operations con- 
ducted in the waters of every ocean ? To the sightless 
and brainless little jelly creatures within, or to the 
only wise God? 

* McCosh's Typical Forms, p. 65. 



396 THE FIFTH DAY. 

ANIMALCULES. - 
How 'manifold are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all. 

The waters of the earth — oceans, lakes, streams and 
pools — abound with living creatures of various kinds, 
too minute in their dimensions to be traced or exam- 
ined by the unassisted eye. Beyond, and far beyond 
the limits of natural vision, the microscope has revealed 
to us new races, and, indeed, new systems of races, 
whose existence, had it not been for that instrument, 
could scarcely have been suspected, and whose func- 
tions must have remained entirely unknown. When 
by means of this help we explore this region of 
animated nature, we feel as if we were entering the 
confines of a new world, and surveying new orders of 
sentient existences. Here we behold animals, minute 
indeed, but of all shapes and figures — some of them 
appear like mere vital atoms, some like globes, some 
like slender ribbons, some like wheels turning on axes, 
some like double-headed monsters, some like long 
cylinders, some armed with horns, some contorted like 
worms, some like long hairs, some like tapering spires, 
some like graceful cupolas, some like swimming fishes,, 
and some like animated vegetables. Many of them 
are almost visible to the naked eye, while many others 
are so small that the breadth of a human hair would 
cover fifty or one hundred of them. Others still of 
them are so extremely minute that millions of millions 



THE FIFTH DAY. 397 

of them might be contained within the compass of a 
cubic inch. Hundreds and thousands of square miles 
of the ocean's bottom are covered with the busy 
animalcula called polypi, which have been the builders 
of reefs and promontories, and of many of the islands 
now the residence of man. The waters of the Arctic 
Sea are often discolored by myriads of animalcules 
called medusce ; a cubic foot of this water taken up at 
random was found to contain no less than 100,000 of 
these little animals. What, then, must be the num- 
bers contained in many square leagues of water of this 
character, often witnessed in many regions of the globe. 
Yet all these minute animals, whether found at the 
bottom or on the surface of the waters, are furnished 
with the numerous organs of life, as well as the larger 
kinds ; nor only this, they also give decided evidences 
of sagacity, volitions, feelings, preferences and attach- 
ments, like superior animals ; and like them, too, they 
display symptoms of hatred and affection, restlessness 
and contentment, pleasure and suffering. But let us 
notice a few particular examples. 

The little animal called proteus can change his figure 
at pleasure, being sometimes extended to an immode- 
rate length, and then contracted to a point ; one 
moment we see it inflated into a sphere, the next 
completely flaccid; and then various eminences like 
horns will project themselves from its surface, altering 
it apparently into an entirely different animal. The 
rotifera may be dried up and laid on a shelf, so that 



398 THE FIFTH DAY. 

the functions of life shall be suspended for years, and 
yet when restored to their native element, will revive 
and be as active as ever. 

The hydra, a fresh-water animalcule, consists of 
nothing but a stomach, with little tentacula to draw in 
its prey ; it eats ravenously when it can get food, and 
yet can live four months without any. When it is 
turned inside out, it lives on and flourishes as if 
nothing had happened. But the most remarkable 
thing about the hydra is its power of repairing almost 
any injury it may receive that does not absolutely 
annihilate it. If it is divided lengthwise into several 
strips, each strip within twenty-four hours will be a 
perfect animal with stomach and tentacula complete, 
ready to eat, drink and be merry. Or, by cutting up 
several hydras, different parts may be made to grow 
together, and become one animal. And in this way 
every variety of monster, which fancy yet has feigned, 
or fear conceived, may be formed. 

The hair-like animalcula move in armies ; sometimes 
marching in solid phalanx, sometimes dividing into 
several -columns, without confusion or disorder, as if 
well drilled, and under the direction of experienced 
commanders. 

The most minute of animalcules are called Infusoria. 
Among these the splendid discoveries of Ehrenberg 
have disclosed a world of wonders. He has described 
no less than a thousand different species of them. The 
smallest of these animals are not more than one-forty- 



THE FIFTH DAY. 399 

thousandth part of an inch in diameter ; and so thickly 
are they sometimes crowded together that one drop 
contains 500,000,000 of them! Formerly, it was 
supposed that these animals were little more than 
simple particles of matter endowed with vitality. But 
this distinguished naturalist has ascertained that some 
of these are herbivorous and some carnivorous animals, 
that some have shells and some have none ; and that 
they possess mouths, teeth, stomachs, muscles, nerves, 
glands, eyes — in short, all the important organs of the 
larger animals. Some species have from 100 to 200 
sacks or stomachs connected with an intestinal canal ; 
and the thickness of the membranes that line these 
stomachs he estimates at one-fifty-millionth part of 
an inch. 

The variety and vigor of the movements of animal- 
cules are especially to be admired. There is scarcely a 
known means of impulsion or progression that is not to 
be found in the microscopic world. Some move with 
graceful undulations like serpents, others dart as if by 
a spring or elastic force; others move by means of 
vibrating celise, while the charming vorticellce have a 
rotary motion. The rotifer a, again, have what seem 
like two little wheels on each side, which appear to 
propel precisely as do the paddle wheels of steamers. 
Others drag their unwieldy bodies along with painful 
exertion, and others again persist in perpetual rest. 

It has also been discovered that the Creator's bless- 
ing of fruitfulness was effectual, and is still legible in 



400 THE FIFTH DAY. 

the constitution and history of these invisible animal- 
cules, as in those larger inhabitants of the deep. An 
individual of the Jtydatina senta has increased in ten 
days to 1,000,000 ; in eleven days to 4,000,000 ; and 
in twelve days to 16,000,000 ! Even this, however, is 
but a moderate increase compared with that of another 
species, which is capable of multiplying in four days to 
170,000,000,000,000! This is marvellous fecundity 
indeed. And the modes of reproduction in these 
minute animals are scarcely less wonderful. While 
various species among them reproduce by eggs and 
spawn, like larger creatures, multitudes of them perpet- 
uate their kind in ways totally different from those of 
superior races. Some multiply by numerous gemmules 
or buds sprouting from the outer surface of the parent, 
which gradually develop into its own form, then 
become detached, and assume an independent exist- 
ence. Some spontaneously divide into two, four, eight, 
or sixteen parts, each part becoming a perfect animal 
like the undivided original, and leaving it impossible to 
decide which is the parent, or which is the offspring. 
Some gradually distend like little globules, and pre- 
sently burst and perish as out of them crawl hundreds 
and thousands of infant animalcules. Some separate 
into a number of globular parts, each globule retaining 
all the vitality and activity of the original whole, and 
thus the life of the parent knows no end, and that of 
the offspring no beginning; thus presenting a pseudo 
immortality. And what is still more surprising, the 



THE FIFTH DAY. 401 

same individual, as it would appear, often reproduces 
in two, three, or four different ways. 

REFLECTIONS. 

What scenes of wonder have we in the world of 
animalcula — among creatures whose minuteness tran- 
scends all the powers of the imagination, 500,000,000 
finding an ample ocean in a single drop of water! 
And when we are compelled to believe that these are 
as diverse in their forms and characters as are the 
larger species of creation; that every one is an 
organized and living being, with a complex system of 
members, each of which is most skilfully fitted for its 
peculiar functions; that the processes of digestion, 
nutrition and reproduction are carried on in these 
invisible particles with equal perfection as in our own 
bodies ; that they have instincts and habits, the powers 
of choice and aversion, and capacity for pain and enjoy- 
ment — all this appears so amazing that we find it as 
difficult to stretch our imagination downwards to the 
infinitely little among the creations of the earth, as it 
is to rise to the comprehension of the infinitely vast 
among the orbs and the systems of the heavens. 

Where, then, are the bounds of Jehovah's empire ! 
Where are the limits of the operations of His hands ! 
Man, with striking fitness, has been described as a 

" Distinguished link in being's endless chain, 
Midway from nothing to the Deity." 

He looks through the telescope, and discovers the 
26 



402 THE FIFTH DAY. 

creations of the Almighty reaching above him to the 
infinitude of space; he peers through the microscope, 
and sees them in like manner descending below him to 
the infinitude of minuteness. Striking and beautiful is 
the language of the eloquent Chalmers, as he contem- 
plated the respective discoveries made by these two 
instruments : " The one led me to see a system in 
every star ; the other leads me to see a world in every 
atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, 
with the whole burden of its people and of its countries, 
is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity ; 
the other teaches me, that every grain of sand may 
harbor within it the tribes and the families of a busy 
population. The one told me of the insignificance of 
the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from 
all its insignificance, for, it tells me that in the leaves 
of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and 
in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming 
with life, and numberless as are the glories of the 
firmament. The one has suggested to me that, beyond 
and above all that is visible to man, there may be 
fields of creation which sweep immeasurably along, 
and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the 
remotest scenes of the universe ; the other suggests to 
me that, within and beyond all that minuteness which 
the aided eye of man has been enabled to explore, 
there may be a region of invisibles ; and that, could we 
draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it 
from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as 



THE FIFTH DAY. 403 

many wonders as astronomy has unfolded, a universe 
within the compass of a point so small, as to elude all 
the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder- 
working God finds room for the exercise of all His 
attributes, where He can raise another mechanism 
of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the 
evidences of His glory." 

THE WONDERS AND SPLENDORS OF OCEAN 

LIFE. 

In the survey now taken of the watery world — 
travelling down, as we have, from the enormous whale 
of a hundred feet length, by its numerous congener 
monsters of the deep, and through all the unnumbered 
and innumerable shoals of the migratory tribes, and 
among the scattered multitudes of encrusted and crawl- 
ing creatures along the ocean floor, and over the 
boundless pavements of shell-fish of every varied form 
and size, together with a thousand other species, till we 
reach the myriad tribes of animalcula, 500,000 times 
less than the least visible point — what a distance have 
we travelled, what a lengthy and diversified series of 
living beings have we traced! And yet all these are 
fashioned after their kind in a manner worthy their 
Divine Maker; each species, from the greatest to the 
least, embraces a system of exquisite contrivances and 
adaptations, a combination of faculties and functions, 
surpassing all human study and comprehension. What, 
then, shall we think of that All-comprehending Intel- 



404 THE FIFTH DAY. 

ligence that planned and formed all the thousands and 
tens of thousands of the ocean's differing tribes — 
differing in size and form and color; differing in the 
structure of their bones, and in the tissue of their 
flesh; differing in their organs and faculties and dis- 
positions; differing in their systems of respiration, 
circulation and digestion; differing in their instincts 
and habits, food and habitations; differing in their 
instruments of assault and means of defence, in their 
modes of reproduction and sources of enjoyment, in the 
duration of their existence, and the end of their being, 
as well as in a multitude of other particulars. What 
an endless diversity do we here behold ! What count- 
less organs and functions to be contrived ! What 
innumerable properties and adaptations to be secured ! 
Yet in the Divine Mind the whole vast and varied 
population of the watery world existed in plan, perfect 
and complete, " when as yet there was none of them. ,, 
In that plan, nothing was forgotten, nothing over- 
looked ; in its execution, no unforeseen difficulty arose, 
no living thing, great or small, came short of its 
designed perfection. How marvellous the arrange- 
ments, how perfect the works of the great Creator! 
Of all, and of each of the inhabitants of the deep and 
wide sea, it may be truly asserted that 

11 The minutest throb, 
Which through their frame diffuses 
The slightest, faintest motion, 
Is fixed and indispensable 

As the majestic laws 
That rule yon rolling orbs. " 



THE FIFTH DAY. 405 

The world of waters presents us with not only 
displays of the contriving wisdom, but also with clear 
proofs of the universal and unceasing agency of the 
Creator. The instinctive doings and movements of the 
inhabitants of the deep prove that God immediately 
and unremittingly guides and actuates every one of 
them. The evidence of this is plain and conclusive. 
Here we see numerous species migrate from one region 
of the ocean to another; from year to year they 
commence and end their long voyages just at such a 
date, yet without any calendar of the months or 
reckoning of the days; and they steer through the 
deep by day and by night, in the storm and in the 
sunshine, for thousands of miles, taking no observation 
of sun or moon or stars, without chart or compass, and 
never once deviate from their course, or miss of their 
intended destination. We observe others forsaking 
their failing pools, and marching in a direct line over 
land for the nearest other water, though they had 
never seen it. We discover others practising strata- 
gems to decoy and catch their prey, or to elude and 
escape their enemies, which all the reason and cunning 
of man could not excel. We behold others still, 
without experience and without instruction, converting 
their little shells into boats, hoisting their sails, or 
plying their tiny oars, and thus sail over the surface 
of the deep, as safely as the most expert of human 
mariners. And we find even each of the millions of 
millions of corallines and madrepores, in the Southern 



406 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

ocean, building its structure with the most consummate 
art, depositing one stony particle after another as regu- 
larly and correctly as if it worked by compass and 
rule, until the completed fabric stands before us a very 
perfection of accuracy, symmetry and beauty. Now, 
in these, and a thousand other operations of a similar 
nature, we have obviously the presence of intelligence, 
and of a very high degree of intelligence. And the 
great question is, whose intelligence? Certainly not 
the intelligence of the animal ; for here are operations 
involving scientific qualifications, which imply a knowl- 
edge that man has only attained by the most difficult 
and gradual mental process; a fact that at once 
precludes the idea that the directing intelligence is 
that of the animal. Besides, the mental power here 
seen displays itself at once in the young progeny, in 
such full and exquisite perfection, and with such 
unerring success accomplishes ends, which the animal 
can neither appreciate nor foresee. If we cannot, 
therefore, accredit the animal with the wisdom of the 
means, or with the skill of the operations before us, 
are we not carried directly upward to the Divine 
Intelligence, working in and through the animal ? Or, 
to simplify and abbreviate our syllogism — we have in 
these instinctive doings a mental process of a very 
high order; we must, therefore, find a mental agent. 
Such an agent we do not find in the animal; it 
appears, on the contrary, from all evidence, to be a 
mere blind instrument. We are forced, therefore, to 



THE FIFTH DAY. 407 

admit a higher agent ; and this agent can only be the 
Supreme Intelligence, everywhere present in creation. 
Thus, then, we are led to the conviction that, all life 
reveals a present Deity, and all the instinctive functions 
of life the immediate operations of the Divine energy. 
God is not only present with all the myriads of the 
deep and wide ocean, but actuates and guides them in 
all their doings. He it is that teaches them their way 
of life, and acquaints them with their appointed 
seasons. He it is that sets in order their innumerable 
armies, and leads them to and fro in their distant 
migrations. He it is that guides the busy hands of 
the little polyps in rearing their coral wonders; and 
that marshals in single ranks or solid squadrons the 
invisible animalcula of the still and silent pool. Hence 
w r e may well join in the devout exclamation of the 
eloquent Fenelon : " my God, he who does not see 
thee in thy works, has seen nothing ! He who does 
not confess thy hand in the beautiful productions of 
this well-ordered world, is a stranger to the best affec- 
tions of the heart. He exists as though he existed 
not ; and his life is no more than a dream." 

The view now taken of the ocean and its living 
wonders, serves to show that it is a high and leading 
design with God, in the creation, to produce and extend 
happiness. Accordingly, we find the water as well as 
the dry land teeming with delighted existence. We 
see the margins of rivers, lakes, and of the sea itself, 
abounding with shoals of the fry of fish, and attesting 



408 THE FIFTH DAY. 

by their wanton mazes and gratuitous activity, that 
they are so happy that they know not what to do with 
themselves. And in the great deeps, and among the 
larger classes, we observe racing, leaping, and fantastic 
gambols, which plainly indicate feelings of delight and 
happiness. Even within the Polar circles, the inhabi- 
tants of those dark and icy seas have their peculiar 
pastimes and pleasures therein. Happiness, from every 
region of sea and land, ascends million-voiced to the 
Great Source of being day by day. Such a sense of it 
is diffused through creation as warms and animates it 
everywhere with the breath of thanksgiving. It is 
Nature's song of piety, and ascends from the dark, 
unfathomed dells and caves of the ocean, as clearly as 
from the flowery meadows and echoing groves ; and is 
alike from both, new every morning, and fresh every 
evening. Jars, indeed, mingle in the wide-toned Te 
Deum laudamus, and mar more or less the harmony of 
the song ; but still upward it goes, an all-pervading 
strain of happiness, in testimony of the love from 
which it comes, and in which alone it lives. 

To appreciate the happiness and splendor of ocean 
life, we must actually look down and contemplate some 
of the scenes of beauty and delight which are presented 
beneath its waters. And for this end, let us first 
embark with Sir Arthur de Capell Broke, on the North 
Sea. " The ocean's surface is unruffled, and its waters 
perfectly transparent. Hanging over the gunwale of 
the boat," says he, " with wonder and delight I gazed 



THE FIFTH DAY. 409 

on the slowly moving scene below. Gliding slowly 
along, we saw far beneath the rugged sides of a 
mountain rising toward the boat, the base of which, 
perhaps, was hidden some miles in the great deep 
below. Though moving on the level surface, it seemed 
almost as if we were ascending the height under us ; 
and when we passed over its summit, which rose in 
appearance within a few feet of the boat, and came 
again to the descent, which on this side was suddenly 
perpendicular, and overlooking a watery gulf, as we 
pushed ourselves gently over the last point of it, it 
seemed as if we had thrown ourselves down this preci- 
pice; the illusion, from the crystal clearness of the 
deep, actually producing a start. Now we came again 
to a plain, and passed slowly over the submarine 
forests and meadows, which appeared in the expanse 
below, inhabited by thousands of animals, to which 
they afford both food and happy homes — animals 
unknown to man ; and I could sometimes observe large 
fishes of singular shapes gliding softly through the 
watery thickets, unconscious of what was moving 
above them. As we proceeded, the bottom became no 
longer visible ; its fairy scenes gradually faded to the 
view, and were lost in the dark, green depths of the 
ocean." 

Next, let us accompany the philosophic Quatrefages 
on one of his exploring trips over the waters of the 
beautiful Mediterranean. Such, frequently, are the 
stillness and transparency of these waters, he tells us, 



410 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

that as he sails along, lie seems to be hanging in 
mid-space, or looking down like a bird from the air, 
upon the landscape below. " Strangely formed animals 
people these submarine regions, and give animation to 
them. Fishes, sometimes singly, like the sparrows of 
our streets, or the warblers of our hedges ; sometimes 
uniting in flocks, like starlings or pigeons, roam among 
the crags, wander through the thickets of the algae, or 
disperse and shoot away in all directions, as the 
shadow of the boat passes over them. Thousands of 
Zoophytes, with flower-like petals, blossom beneath the 
tempered rays of the sun; while hosts of mollusca, 
some encased in stony shells; others, whose unpro- 
tected nakedness is compensated by their gorgeous 
colors or elegant forms, go gliding along ; while 
awkward long-legged sea-spiders run over them in 
every oblique direction. Other shapes, like lobsters 
and prawns, gambol among the weeds, or repose under 
some friendly arch or overhanging tuft. Add to all 
these a thousand other beings of every varied form, 
and of every shade of color, all rejoicing in their native 
element, and possessing all they need or desire." 

Cross we now the Atlantic, and join Schopf in his 
delightful voyage over the Caribbean Sea. " In passing 
over these splendidly adorned grounds," says he, 
" where marine life shows itself in an endless variety 
of forms, the boat, suspended over the purest crystal, 
seems to float in the air, so that a person unaccustomed 
to the scene easily becomes giddy. On the clear sandy 



THE FIFTH DAY. 411 

bottom appear thousands of sea-stars, sea-urchins, mol- 
luscs, and fishes of a brilliancy of colors unknown in 
more temperate climes. Burning red, intense blue, 
livery green, and golden yellow perpetually vary. The 
spectator floats over groves of sea-plants, gorgonias, 
corals, alcyoniums, flabellums, and sponges, that afford 
no less delight to the eye, and are no less gently 
agitated by the heaving waters, than the most beautiful 
garden on earth when a gentle breeze passes through 
the waving boughs." 

We change our point of observation once more, and 
with Jukes look down upon one of the reefs of the 
Pacific. And what a stirring sight is here before us. 
f? The bottom of the clear waters is overspread with a 
green carpet of tubiporas and astreas, diversified by 
more bright-colored miandrinae and cariophyllae, swiftly 
vibrating their rich golden stamina. Over this world 
beneath, as if to shade it from the sun, rise groves of 
living coral, branching in fantastic imitations of the 
shrubs and trees of the land; and the majestic 
gorgonias and the less lofty isis undulate like the 
willows and aspens and climbing plants of our own 
forests. The plumaria sends forth its spirals from one 
submarine tree to another, just like the grape-vine of 
the South. Within this submarine paradise, and 
among these gorgeous productions, we see a diversified 
world of living inhabitants. Molluscs drag their shells 
of pearly lustre along these labyrinths ; crabs run and 
hunt here; strange fish rove tranquilly about the 



412 THE FIFTH DAY. 

rising stems, while others more beautiful and radiant 
with metallic greens or crimsons playfully float among 
the coral branches, like birds among the trees. Here 
crawl idly over brainstones and madrepores those fine 
cones and cowries and olives, that form the pride of 
many an European cabinet. There long ribbon-fish, 
gleaming like burnished silver, are darting by; while 
the parrot-fishes, more peaceful, are browsing and 
nibbling the young tips of the growing weeds." With 
such a scene before us, we wonder not at the words of 
Ehrenberg, when he exclaimed, " Where is the para- 
dise of flowers that can rival in variety and beauty 
these living wonders of the ocean ?" 

Thus, then, does the ocean with its innumerable 
tenants, all in their measure endowed both with the 
capacity and the means of happiness, proclaim aloud 
the vast profusion of the Divine beneficence : " 
Lord, how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast 
Thou made them all ; the earth is full of thy riches ; 
so also is the great and wide sea, wherein are things 
creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. 
These all wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give 
them their meat in due season. That Thou givest 
them they gather ; Thou openest thine hand, and they 
are filled with good. All thy works praise Thee, O 
Lord ; and thy saints shall bless Thee." 



THE FIFTH DAY. 413 



BIRDS. 



And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the fowl that 
may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 

Birds compose, in many respects, the most interest- 
ing class of animated nature. And in their numbers 
and varieties we see another astonishing display of the 
riches of Divine invention and creative power. Had 
man existed, and been asked on the morning of the 
fifth day, before a bird had been seen or made, how 
creatures could be contrived that could overcome the 
force of gravitation, raise and poise themselves high 
in the atmosphere, and there with ease and rapidity 
advance or recede, rise or descend, or transport them- 
selves from one region to another with or against the 
wind, at their pleasure — had such a problem, I say, 
been then proposed to man, its solution would not only 
have been altogether beyond his capacity, but he 
would have pronounced the thing an impossibility. 
But behold what man could never have conceived God 
hath done, and done in an endless variety of ways ! 
Nearly 7,000 different species of birds have already 
been examined and classified ; and there can be little 
doubt but thousands more exist in the unexplored 
forests, marshes, deserts and mountains of the earth. 
These are of all forms and sizes, from the formidable 
condor of the Andes down to the diminutive humming 
bird that flits in the sunshine of the tropics. Many 



414 THE FIFTH DAY. 

of them fill us with admiration by the grace and 
elegance of their forms, others astonish us with the 
ease and swiftness of their motions, while others still, 
delight us no less by the beauty and gorgeousness of 
their plumage. In a word, the feathered race may be 
regarded as being altogether the fairest marvels of our 
world. 

Nowhere can design and adaptation be more con- 
spicuous than in the formation of birds for their native 
element. Their general shape, being invariably that 
of a wedge terminating with the sharp apex of the bill, 
is made to cleave the air with the utmost facility. 
Again, in order to rise and skim through the impalpa- 
ble ether, lightness was found an essential qualification ; 
accordingly, of all animals, birds are the most lightly 
built, and the most penetrated by the element in which 
they move; their bones and their whole organization 
are filled with air, as a sponge with water ; so that 
they possess a degree of levity that no other class of 
animals is endowed with. " In birds distinguished for 
their power of flight," says Child, " such as the Solan^ 
goose, Albatross, and Pelican, the air not only fills the 
bones, but surrounds the viscera, insinuates itself 
between the muscles, and buoys up the entire skin; 
so that the whole body is inflated like a balloon." 
Add to all this the fact that, the air thus inclosed in 
the body of a bird is heated by its natural temperature 
some ten or twelve degrees above that in the body of a 
man; and this, on the principle of a fire-balloon, 



THE FIFTH DAY. 415 

renders the whole bird still more buoyant. Thus, 
then, with a light body, a sharp beak to cleave the 
air, a smooth coat of overlapping feathers, terminating 
in an expansive tail for a rudder, and possessing a pair 
of vigorous wings, birds are able to move in what 
direction and at what speed they please; can glide 
motionless through the air, or skim the surface of the 
waters; can ascend above the clouds, or alight upon 
the earth, or even sport with the force and fury of 
the gale. 

'A. bird inflated, as above described, as is obvious, 
could no more sink in water than an equal bulk of 
cork ; yet some of the most remarkable for their power 
of flight are no less distinguished for the facility with 
which they can dive and glide about under water. 
And herein we discover a most striking instance of me- 
chanical design. Aquatic fowls, that have been ap- 
pointed to seek their food in the waters, are furnished 
with special sets of muscles variously disposed over 
their frames, by means of which they are enabled to 
contract the body and immediately expel the air, so 
that they can as readily dive and chase their prey along 
the bottoms of rivers and pools as they can skim 
through the atmosphere. Contrivance and design are 
not more clearly indicated in the valve by which the 
aeronaut discharges the gas from his balloon in order to 
descend, than they are in this power given to aquatic 
birds. 

The covering given to birds — its lightness, its smooth- 



416 THE FIFTH DAY. 

ness, its warmth, its beauty — is worthy of all admira- 
tion. What lighter clothing for aerial nights could 
have been devised? The entire feathers of an owl 
weigh only an ounce and a half. What warmer pro- 
tection could have been given to those that spend much 
of their time on the water than their thick plumage, 
which they are taught to render impervious to moisture 
by the application of oil secreted in their bodies for 
that express purpose ? If we look at these feathers one 
by one, we shall find the simplest of them a production 
of marvellous ingenuity. Every feather has been 
measured and weighed, shaped and colored, with refer- 
ence to its particular situation and function, and the 
whole presents a striking display of creative wisdom. 
And if we examine the fine feathers of such birds as 
the egret, the enu, and the ibis ; or the gorgeous ones 
of the peacock, the parrot, and the bird of paradise ; or 
the more rare and costly plumes of the ostrich and the 
heron — we are forced to admit that here we trace the 
hand and pencil of a Divine Artist, whose mind em- 
braces the perfection of all symmetry, beauty and 
grace. 

In the feathered creation, as in every other depart- 
ment of animated nature, we find a most wonderful 
diversity in form and stature, in instincts and habits. 
Few things can exceed the variety here displayed. 
Some are of great size and power, able to bear away on 
the wing a lamb, a kid, or even a small deer, with ease; 
others are extremely small and delicate, scarcely ex- 



THE FIFTH DAY. 417 

ceeding in size a beetle or a bumble-bee. Some are 
made to dwell upon the sea, and some upon the land. 
Some subsist by prey, and some on seeds and grasses. 
Some roost through the night and are abroad in the 
day ; and some are of habits quite the reverse, remain- 
ing secluded in the day time, and roaming about in the 
night. Some make their homes among the loftiest 
crags of the mountains, others in the lowest fens and 
marshes ; some in the depths of the forest, and some on 
the barren heaths or sandy deserts. Some are capaci- 
tated to soar among the clouds, and others to dive into 
the bottom of pools. Some are of a nature wild and 
untamable, others are domestic and content to dwell 
about the habitation of man. 

But great as is this diversity among the fowls of the 
air, each is every way happily adapted for the lot as- 
signed to it. The entire structure and each particular 
organ of birds display the most marked and beneficent 
adaptation to their several modes of life. Take, for 
example, the beak or bill, and we find it in every in- 
stance modified and constructed according as its owner 
is a swimmer, a wader, a courser, a scratcher, a climber, 
a percher, or a ravener. The little sparrow tribe is 
appointed to subsist principally on seeds and grain, and 
to it is given a bill so sharp, and with a point so tem- 
pered, that it can readily pick every kind of seed from 
its concealment in the plant ; and not only that, but 
hull them and obtain the naked kernel. The carnivo- 
rous hawk, with its kindred species, is armed with a 

27 



418 THE FIFTH DAY. 

hooked beak, with which it can separate the flesh from 
the bones of the animals upon which it feeds as cleanly 
as a dissector's knife. The goose, duck, etc., being de- 
signed to feed partly on grass, and partly on such sub- 
stances as they can find in the mud at the bottom of 
pools, are furnished with a spoon bill, the most suitable 
that can be imagined for both these purposes. The 
parrot, a climbing bird, is provided with a beak that 
curves into a hook, and forms the very instrument by 
which it is enabled to climb from twig to twig, and 
branch to branch. The gannet, which feeds upon fish, 
has the sides of its bill irregularly jagged, that it may 
hold its slimy victims more securely. The crane is 
made to live and seek its food among the waters ; at 
first thought, its lot might appear hard, as it is desti- 
tute of webbed feet and incapable of swimming ; but to 
make up for this deficiency, it is furnished with long 
legs for wading, and with a long neck and bill for 
groping after its food. The woodpecker, which lives 
chiefly on insects lodged in the bodies of decayed trees, 
is provided with a bill, straight, and hard, and sharp, 
to dig and bore down after them; and also with a 
tongue, which it can thrust out full three inches, which 
is tipped with a stiff, pointed, bony thorn, barbed like 
an arrow; having exposed the retreats of the insects by 
means of its bill, it instantly thrusts out at them this 
long tongue, transfixes them on the barbed point, and 
thus draws them within its mouth. Such are a few 
examples of the striking adaptations observed in the 
beaks or bills of birds. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 419 

Let us again look at the foot, and the same thing is 
equally observable. To aquatic fowls has been given a 
web foot, so constructed and articulated as to form the 
most effective propeller for them in the water. But as 
land birds do not attempt to swim, or adventure to the 
water, they have received another, and for them, a 
more suitable foot, viz., a divided one. The vulture, 
the eagle, and the hawk, birds that prey upon hares, 
rabbits, mice, etc., are armed with crooked, sharp and 
powerful claws, with which they seize and hold with 
unfailing grasp whatever they descend upon. The 
heron and cormorant have the middle claw, toothed 
and notched like a saw ; these birds are great fishers, 
and these notches assist them in holding their slippery 
prey. Here, then, again, we behold adaptations of a 
most marked 3haracter. 

Once more : The internal arrangements of birds pre- 
sent adaptations corresponding to their natures and 
habits that are equally striking. Birds that feed on 
seeds and grain have crops, and here these are moist- 
ened and softened, and then pushed on into the gizzard, 
the inner coat of which is filled up with rough plates, 
which, by a strong friction against one another, readily 
break up and grind their food into uniform pulp. In 
birds of prey, we find a membranous stomach, and a 
gastric juice, capable of dissolving rapidly and effectu- 
ally any animal substance they may swallow. Their 
food need not be masticated by teeth, or ground by a 
gizzard, consequently they have neither the one nor the 



420 THE FIFTH DAY. 

other. The gizzard is an organ of great power ; that 
of some mollusc-feeding birds is strong enough to crush 
and grind the shells with ease. Thus Infinite Wisdom 
has adapted every fowl of the air for its appointed 
place and lot ; purpose and design are manifest in all. 

Birds excel in muscular power. The promptitude, force 
and activity they display in their movements, and the 
unwearied vigor with which they persevere for hours and 
days, in the violent exertions required for flight, far ex- 
ceed those of any quadrupeds. The little wagtail seems 
incapable of rest, and insusceptible of fatigue, being per- 
petually in motion. The ostrich will outrun the fleetest 
horse. The condor, Humboldt informs us, soars to the 
height of Chimborazo; and to see him with expanded 
wings, wheeling round its summits, or sweeping down in 
graceful gyrations from the upper sky, each circle con- 
tracting as the earth is neared, is represented by travel- 
lers as a sublime and imposing sight. The wild pigeon 
will fly for a whole day at the rate of sixty miles an hour. 
It is a matter of history, that a falcon belonging to Henry 
IV., of France, having escaped from Fontainbleau, was 
found at the end of twenty-four hours at Malta, a dis- 
tance of 1350 miles. The speed of the swallow is 
computed at 90 miles per hour. The albatros, the 
largest of the sea birds, and having wings that some- 
times expand to the extent of nearly twenty feet, will 
fly with a velocity of 100 miles an hour. It is said 
that the little bird called swift darts through the air 
at a velocity of not less than 180 miles per hour. But 



THE FIFTH DAY. 421 

no bird, perhaps, compares all in all, as to flight, with 
the eaglet of the sea, or frigate-bird. With a compara- 
tively small body, and a pair of prodigious wings, often 
sixteen feet from tip to tip, this bird can afford to 
despise the most powerful tyrants of the air — can in an 
instant leave even the condor leagues behind it. If a 
storm comes, it ascends to heights where all is calm, 
and hovers in royal solitude at an elevation of 10,000 
feet. In its descent, if perchance it meets with other 
birds that are fishing, and that have lifted their fish out 
of the water, it attacks them, makes them disgorge 
their prey, and catches it ere it reaches the surface of 
the deep. " If it seriously wishes to travel," says an 
enthusiastic French naturalist, " all distance disappears. 
It can breakfast in Africa, and dine in America. Or 
if it wishes to take it more leisurely, and to amuse itself 
on the way, it can do so ; it can lay by for the night, 
reposing on its great motionless w r ings, and literally 
sleep on the bosom of the wind." 

Bernouilli once challenged the mathematicians of 
Europe to solve a famous problem : it was, To deter- 
mine the line through which a falliny hody would 
descend most swiftly. Two, Leibnitz and Sir Isaac 
Newton, were able to solve it, and proved the line of 
swiftest descent to be, not a straight line, but a par- 
ticular curve called the cycloid. Now, it is believed 
that it is by this very swoop that the eagle descends 
with such astonishing velocity upon its prey. Here, 
then, neither the writer nor the reader can escape the 



422 THE FIFTH DAY. 

question, Who taught the birds of the mountains the 
line of swiftest descent, the discovery of which was 
believed to be a test of the highest mathematical skill ? 

In birds, the organs of sight, hearing, and smelling 
are in general of great acuteness, and admirably 
adapted to their several wants and habits. The eyes 
of owls, and other birds of night, are expressly con- 
structed for seeing amid faint and scattered rays of 
light ; whilst those of day-birds are obviously different 
according to their different habits. The eye in birds 
generally is proportionally larger and more prominent 
than in other animals; which enables them to com- 
mand a more ^extensive range of view. Many tribes 
possess, in a wonderful degree, the power of altering 
the focus of vision, so as to see with equal distinctness 
objects that are nearer or more remote. A wild pigeon, 
flying at double the rate of a railroad car, can inspect 
the face of the ground below, and discover its food with 
facility. The vultures of Africa will discover a dead 
animal as soon as it falls, from heights utterly viewless 
to the human eye. The hearing and smelling in 
many species are equally acute. The organs of hear- 
ing in birds are of larger size compared with that of 
the head than in other animals. And the size of the 
olfactory nerves in birds of prey greatly exceeds that 
of the same nerves in granivorous birds. 

Although the brain of birds is far less fully de- 
veloped than that of quadrupeds, yet in point of 
intelligence, they are scarce inferior to them. Some 



THE FIFTH DAY. 423 

are as capable as the dog of being trained to many 
things, and give decided evidences of aversion and 
attachment, memory and expectation. Dr. Schinz had 
a couple of tame storks that knew their names as well 
as a dog, and on being called would immediately come 
to him ; they would by their gestures urge him to 
shake down the cockchafers from the trees for them, 
and to take the spade and turn the soil, that they might 
pick up the worms, of which they were very fond. 

Even the goose, though long slanderously made a 
proverbial expression for silliness, possesses a marked 
degree of intelligence. A flock of these birds never 
yield themselves to slumber without appointing a 
sentinel, and that sentinel, to ensure wakefulness, 
stands invariably on one foot. Bishop Stanley men- 
tions a goose that followed its owner about the streets 
with as much fidelity as a dog; when he entered a 
house, it would wait patiently outside for his return, 
and when he reappeared, would express its joy in its 
own peculiar cries. The same authority also relates 
the story of an aged blind woman, in Germany, who 
was habitually led to church by a sagacious old gander. 
The gander took hold of her dress with his bill, and 
gently led her along. Having seen her fairly seated 
in her pew, the fowl decorously withdrew, and cropped 
for himself a refreshing meal from the rich grass 
growing around the church. As soon as the services 
were over, he returned to his charge, and conducted 
her in the same way home again. He was regarded 



424 THE FIFTH DAY. 

by the family as a safe and reliable escort ; and they 
were accustomed to say that they felt no anxiety on 
the old lady's account " so long as they knew that the 
gander was with her." 

The memory of birds, in many instances at least, is 
surprising; for, after long absence and a voyage of 
many hundred miles, the migratory species will return 
not only to the same clime and country, but, with 
unerring certainty, to their former haunts. "Year 
after year," says Dr. Hartwig, in his Harmonies of 
Nature, " the swallow, after revelling in the orange 
groves of Itaty, or among the palms of Africa, revisits 
the same English cottage, ever ready to welcome it 
under the same hospitable thatch." The parrot gives 
numberless proofs of memory and intelligence ; he not 
only imitates the voice of man, but has also a strong 
desire to do so, which he manifests by his attention in 
listening, and by the continuous efforts he makes to 
repeat the phrases he has heard. He seems to impose 
upon himself a daily task, which even occupies him 
during sleep, as he speaks in his dreams. Le Vaillant 
tells us that he heard a parrot repeat the Lord's prayer 
from beginning to end in the Dutch language. 

The Rev. Mr. Jenyns relates that he knew a tame 
owl, which was so fond of music, that he would enter 
the drawing-room of an evening, and, perching on the 
shoulder of one of the children, listen with great 
attention to the tones of the piano forte ; holding his 
head first on one side, then on the other, after the 



THE FIFTH DAY., 425 

manner of connoisseurs. One night, suddenly spread- 
ing his wings, as if unable to endure his rapture any 
longer, he alighted on the keys, and driving away the 
fingers of the performer with his beak, began to hop 
about upon the keys himself, apparently greatly 
delighted with his own execution. 

Of all animals, birds are the best organized as to 
voice, or the power of uttering sounds. The windpipe 
in birds is very large and strong ; the larynx, unlike 
that of man, is double, one being at the top, and the 
other at the bottom of that pipe. The sound produced 
in the lower larynx is further modulated in passing 
through the upper, so that by means of the two they 
are capable of uttering nearly all possible variations of 
sounds. The air playing through these larynxes is 
supplied, not from the lungs alone, but also from the 
air-sacs distributed over the body, with which they 
stand in free communication ; hence it is that they can 
continue their songs so long without stop or inter- 
ruption. In different species, these organs of voice are 
modified to utter such notes, and to speak such a 
language, as their respective natures and circumstances 
seem to demand. The cawing of the rook, the croaking 
of the raven, the cooing of the dove, the carolling of the 
lark, the warbling of the nightingale and of other 
singing birds, are all the results of their organization, 
modified according to the plan and will of the Infinite 
Intelligence, who created all. 

There is something at once peculiar and delightful 



426 THE FIFTH DAY. 

in the musical intonations of the feathered race, which 
affords a clear indication of beneficent and loving de- 
sign. The music of the grove has always been a favor- 
ite theme with the poet; nor is there any grade or class 
of men to whom the songs of the little warblers among 
the leaves are not a source of enjoyment. What life 
and charm do their melodies lend to the beauties of the 
summer months. With what pleasing emotions do 
they inspire the heart of the listener. Some delight us 
with their long and quivering notes, and sweet varia- 
tions; now gently warbling, then gradually swelling 
into astonishing force and rapidity. Some, with harsher 
pipes, arrest our ear with discordant sounds, yet, by 
their contrast, adding interest to the general concert. 
Some alternate their liveliest notes with plaintive ac- 
cents that soothe and melt the soul into pleasing 
melancholy. Others, with their gay and lively airs, 
elevate our spirits, enkindle our best and liveliest feel- 
ings, and bring our whole intellectual and emotional 
being into harmony with the peaceful and charming 
scene around us. But the notes and songs of birds, 
which are thus so agreeable to us, are probably more 
delightful, and far more significant, to the respective 
tribes which give utterance to them. They are to them 
the language of conjugal affection, of parental love, of 
triumphant exultation, of social enjoyment. They 
animate and urge forward the labors of nest-building, 
they cheer the tedium of incubation, they infuse joy 
into the hearts of the tender brood, they bid defiance 
to enemies, and inspire friends with confidence. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 427 

The voice of birds is remarkable for its power of 
penetration. No beast, in proportion to its size, ap- 
proaches them in this respect. Were even a lion 
chained to a balloon, his deep roar would be lost in 
space ; while the little lark ascends singing, and is 
heard when no longer visible. Its little vibrating 
throat sets the whole atmosphere around into waves or 
undulations. " Let us suppose that we hear its song 
when elevated to the height of 500 feet in the air; 
in that case its voice agitates or undulates a sphere 
of air 1000 feet in diameter; that is to say, it commu- 
nicates to 17,888 tons of air a motion sufficiently intense 
to be appreciated by our organs of hearing." — Glaciers 
of the Alps. 

Another fact of very pleasing interest connected with 
birds is their pairing. Early in the spring, almost 
every little songster of the grove, and meadow, and 
heath, has chosen a mate. And those that have mi- 
grated to spend the winter in distant countries return, 
each accompanied by its wedded help-meet. And in 
this relation they are patterns of fidelity, as well as 
mutual sympathy and kindness. Even the fierce eagle 
and rapacious hawk are remarkable for their fidelity 
and love for their respective mates. Ravens and crows 
generally pair for life. The dove is also distinguished 
in this respect. " The pigeon devotes herself to one 
companion, and the union is only dissolved by death ; 
when bereaved, she mourns her loss, and long refuses 
to accept another mate. The black pigeon of the East, 



428 THE FIFTH DAY. 

when her mate dies, obstinately rejects all others, and 
continues in a widowed state for life. Among thousands 
. of examples, few are, perhaps, more touching than one 
given by Lord Kaimes, who relates the circumstance 
of a canary, which fell dead in singing to his mate, 
while in the act of incubation. The female quitted her 
nest, and finding him dead, rejected all food, and died 
by his side." * 

In this pairing of birds we discover another striking 
and beneficent provision of the Great Father of all. 
In nearly every other order of animals the care and toil 
of rearing the young devolve entirely upon the female. 
When the offspring is suckled, there is little that the 
male can do, and his attentions are not required. But 
with birds it is not so. Their parental duties are many 
and tedious and full of labor. They have to build a 
nest with much skill and toil ; the eggs are to be laid, 
and long brooded on by day and by night ; and the 
young, when hatched, are to be carefully fed and edu- 
cated. And these are operations that demand the 
united efforts of both parents. To procure a daily sup- 
ply for six, eight, or ten, craving mouths, would be 
more than the poor mother, with all her devoted efforts, 
could possibly accomplish. " The Creator, therefore, 
who placed her in these circumstances, has provided for 
her the means of not only lightening her labors, but of 
also rendering them delightful. Her faithful and af- 
fectionate mate constantly attends her ; they build the 

* Benedicite. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 429 

nest together; by day, while she performs the duty of 
incubation, he either collects her necessary food and care- 
fully feeds her himself, or occasionally supplies her place 
on the nest, while she hunts the fields to satisfy her own 
wants ; and when the task is accomplished, he sits on a 
neighboring bough, and cheers her tedium with a song. 
By night, the nest is their common resting-place, where 
they nestle side by side. When the callow brood are 
hatched, they roam together or apart, to forage for them 
in the neighboring gardens, or fields, or woods; and 
urged by parental affection, and warmed by mutual 
sympathy, they ply their constant toil without remis- 
sion and without weariness. When at length the first 
helpless stage of existence is passed, and the young, 
full-fledged, are to be committed to their own resources, 
the little patient and affectionate acts with which they 
united to train their tender charge to the important 
functions of their being, gracefully crown these varied 
and tender labors of love." — Sac. Phil. 

Of all the instinctive operations of the feathered race, 
not one, perhaps, is more remarkable, more varied, and 
more worthy of admiration, than their nest-building. 
In this important business, the first point of inquiry 
with the little artificers is, where shall the nest be built. 
In deciding this, each species is directed by its instinct 
to select with admirable discernment the locality best 
suited to its habits and temperament, and the most se- 
cure from its particular enemies. Hence the situations 
chosen are as various as are the natures of the builders. 



430 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Some choose the tufted grass, some the clayey bank, 
some the eaves of houses, some the surface of the sand, 
- some the clefts of the rocks, some the dark and hidden 
caves ; but the great majority nidificate in bushes and 
trees. As a general rule, the main object aimed at in 
nest-building seems to be to secure and to preserve a 
sufficient and equable degree of heat for the eggs during 
the process of incubation. Hence both the character 
of the materials, and the care with which they are put 
together, vary according to the size of the bird, the cli- 
mate of the country, and the season of the year. Large 
birds, like the eagle, the emeu, and the osprey, whose 
great bodies possess in themselves adequate heat with- 
out much artificial aid, build carelessly, and with a few 
rough materials ; while the little goldfinch forms the 
cradle of its young with fine mosses and lichens, made 
compact as felt, and then lined with thistle down — a 
model of beautiful construction. The thrush, which 
breeds very early, plasters its nest with loam, in order 
to exclude the keen gales of the still lingering winter ; 
whilst the little warbling wren is taught another way, 
and delays its maternal labors till the middle of sum- 
mer, to compensate for the trifling degree of warmth 
communicated by its tiny form. The ostrich, which 
resides in the hot wilds of Africa, scratches a little hol- 
low, and lays her eggs on the bare sand. In wide and 
opposing contrast with this, the eider duck, in the chilly 
regions of Iceland, tears the down from her own body, 
that, by a lining so soft and warm, she may protect her 
precious charge from the inclemency of that climate. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 431 

The ingenuity exhibited in this work is also very 
marked and wonderful. The European woodpecker, 
having, after full examination, selected his tree, cuts 
out a hole in the solid wood, as circular as if described 
by a pair of compasses. The direction inclines down- 
ward for about six inches, and then straight down for 
some ten more ; within this is roomy, capacious, and as 
smooth as if the work of a cabinet-maker ; but the en- 
trance is judiciously left just so large as to admit the 
bodies of the owners. During this labor they regularly 
carry out the chips, often strewing them at a distance 
to prevent suspicion. But the South American wood- 
pecker, which has to guard against different enemies, 
the monkeys and the snakes, adopts a very different 
style of architecture. The chief material employed is 
a species of moss, resembling hair. This the little bird 
first fixes by some viscous substance, gathered in the 
forest, to the most extreme branch of a tree; then 
building downwards, and still adding fresh materials to 
those already procured, it forms a nest, which hangs 
like a pouch from the point of the branch. There it is 
suspended before the spoilers, a tempting object, which 
they can only gaze upon, while the little tenants fly in 
and out without danger or molestation. The little 
weaver-bird of India takes slender grasses, and so inter- 
twines them as to form a web for its nest of a most 
wonderful structure. The tailor-bird, however, goes 
beyond all others both in skill and caution ; it picks up 
a dead leaf, and actually sews it with fine fibres to the 



432 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

side of a living one, its slender bill being its needle ; 
and this pocket it then lines with feathers, gossamer, 
- and down. Its weight is less than one quarter of an 
ounce, so that a single leaf is amply sufficient to sup- 
port both it and its nest. 

All birds propagate their species by eggs, and the 
number of eggs laid by each particular kind has been 
limited by creative wisdom. Birds of prey lay # few, 
and breed slowly ; but those preyed upon breed rapidly 
and in profusion ; so that those birds which are intended 
to restrain within certain bounds, but not exterminate, 
the smaller tribes, produce very few ; while the other 
orders, in proportion to their helplessness and liability 
to destruction, produce a far more numerous progeny. 
By this adjustment the balance of nature is preserved. 

The nest finished, and the appointed number of eggs 
laid, the bird is led by an influence as infallible as that 
of gravitation, and proceeding from the same source, to 
sit upon them for a set length of time. The operations 
of instinct throughout the process of incubation are 
truly marvellous. Nothing can exceed the patience, 
self-denial, and endurance of the female bird while 
hatching. The happy freedom, the playful flights, 
and warbling concerts, to which she has been accus- 
tomed, are all cheerfully given up, and for many hours 
of many days she sits alone upon her secluded nest, 
and neither cold nor wet, nor even the approach of 
danger can drive her from it. When at intervals she 
leaves to seek a little sustenance, quickly and punc- 



THE FIFTH DAY. 433 

tually she returns, lest her precious charge should 
become chilled. With tender caution every egg is 
covered with her body, and often are they moved and 
turned, that all may equally partake of the vital heat. 
A chemical operation, says Addison, could not be 
followed with greater art or diligence than is seen in 
hatching the young brood ; yet is the process carried 
on without the least glimmer of thought or common 
sense. And when at length the young burst their 
prison cells, and come forth, what tenderness of affec- 
tion is manifested by the parent birds ! How they 
rejoice over them ; how they lull and quiet them by 
their gentle notes of love; put food into their little 
open bills; cover them with their feathers and keep 
them warm ; lead them forth and teach them to pick 
and gather food for themselves ; and in a word, " per- 
form the part of so many nurses, deputed by the 
Sovereign Lord and Preserver of the world to help 
such young and helpless creatures." 

Another fact closely related to the foregoing, and 
which here demands notice and illustration, is the 
fecundity of birds. And God blessed them, and said, 
Be fruitful, and multiply. In virtue of this blessing, 
birds, through all their successive generations, have 
inherited the reproductive energies undiminished, and 
have increased into multitudes that cannot be num- 
bered ; they have overspread and taken possession of 
every part and portion of the earth's surface. The 
groves of the tropical and of the temperate regions are 

28 



434 THE FIFTH DAY. 

everywhere vocal with their various notes and songs ; 
and even in the arctic and antarctic regions, the 
ground is often covered for leagues with millions on 
millions of them. Whole islands are buried beneath 
their mere excrement to the depth of several feet. 
Captain Flinders saw a flock of sooty petrels pass over 
him in Van Diemen's Land, which could not have 
contained less than 150,000,000. And Mr. Audubon 
estimated that a flock of pigeons that passed over him, 
on the banks of the Ohio, must have contained one 
billion one hundred and fifteen millions ! which would 
require for their support not less than eight millions 
of bushels of grain or seed daily ! And yet all these 
are but a part, a small part, of the whole feathered 
family, with which the Creator hath peopled, enlivened, 
and adorned our world. 

One more subject connected with the fowls of the 
air full of interest and wonder, and which we cannot, 
therefore, pass by unnoticed, is their migration. A 
very large proportion — considerably more than half— 
of the different species of birds undertake regularly, at 
certain seasons of the year, long and distant journeys 
from one clime or region to another. Thus our little 
snow birds, on the return of warm weather, proceed 
northward, and spend their summers in the regions of 
the arctic circle ; and as the sun declines there toward 
autumn, they return again to pass the winter with us 
as before. The swallows, the nightingales, and the 
quails, which so much enliven the summers of France 



THE FIFTH DA Y. 435 

and the British Islands, as the fall of the year 
approaches, assemble at their appointed time, take 
their leave, and cross sea and land to spend the winter 
months on the northern coasts of Africa. In like 
manner our oriole and bobolink, that charm us with 
'their sweet and varied notes in the sunny days of 
summer, pass their winters many hundreds of miles 
nearer the warmer regions of the tropics; whilst our 
little blue-bird wings his flight across the sea, and 
makes his winter home in the distant Bermudas. The 
general intention of these remarkable movements seems 
to be to secure a supply of food, and often, a suitable 
temperature for rearing their young. The manner in 
w r hich these migrations are performed differ in different 
tribes. Some choose to travel alone, or in single pairs; 
and some assemble in vast flocks, and take their flight 
together under appointed leaders. And what is more 
remarkable still, in some species, the males assemble 
and depart by themselves, leaving the females to 
follow them after an interval of some days ; while in 
other species, the females congregate and depart first, 
leaving their mates to come after a similar interval. 
Some birds travel by day, some by night, and some 
press on their way indifferently both day and night ; 
and most seem to pass the whole of their migration 
without sleep. 



436 THE FIFTH DAY. 

REFLECTIONS. 

In the preceding pages we have seen that the num- 
bers and varieties of birds are exceeding great; yet 
upon careful observation and close study, every individ- 
ual species is found to embrace in its organization 
contrivances and adaptations, numerous and diversified, 
that fit it happily and in all respects for its intended 
place, and to accomplish its appointed ends, in the 
general system of animated nature. How incompre- 
hensible the wisdom and power of Him, who contrived 
and executed the innumerable forms and features, and 
who conceived and bestowed the faculties and endlessly 
diversified instincts of the whole feathered race, as now 
scattered over the entire seas and lands of the globe ! 
Ere the creative word had gone forth, and ere the 
morning of the fifth day had dawned, all potentially 
and prospectively existed in His all-comprehending 
mind as dear and complete as they now exist in living 
reality — the peculiarities and characteristics that were 
to divide them into their several orders, classes, and 
species ; their outward forms and inward constitutions ; 
the locations they were to occupy, and the habits they 
should follow; the materials they should employ, and 
the skill they were to exercise in building their nest 
habitations ; the seasons at which they should severally 
pair, the number of eggs they should lay, and the 
length of time required for their incubation; the 
texture, the arrangement, and the coloring of their 



THE FIFTH DAY. 437 

plumage; the instincts that should guide them in 
finding and selecting their food; the artifices they 
should practice in eluding their enemies, and in catch- 
ing their prey; the notes they should utter, and the 
songs they should warble ; their individual character, 
and social dispositions; their passions and affections, 
pleasures and pastimes; their language or mode of 
communication with each other ; the force and fleetness 
with which they should fly or swim, dart through the 
air, or dive into the water; the periods of their 
longevity, and the degrees of their fecundity; the 
times at which they should depart and return in their 
stated migrations; the relations they should sustain 
and the ends they should subserve in the great system 
of nature — all these, and a thousand other things con- 
nected with them, stood forth clear, perfect, and 
complete before the omniscient eye of the Creator as 
He opened His lips to utter the words, Let the waters 
bring forth abundantly the fowl that may fly above the 
earth, in the open firmament of heaven. In view of 
such a display of the Divine Capacities, how fitting, 
Reader, for you and me, the adoring exclamation, 
" the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and 
knowledge of God !" 

As in the beauteous creations of the vegetable 
world, and among the countless living tenants of the 
deep, so also among the birds of the air, we behold 
indubitable evidences and most impressive displays of 
the universal and constant agency of God. In all their 



438 THE FIFTH DAY. 

doings and movements, the guiding finger of their 
Creator is clearly seen. Prior to all experience, 
and independent of all instruction, we see the little 
feathered tribes undertake and accomplish all the 
ingenious duties of their being; and accomplish them, 
too, with a certainty and perfection which no instruc- 
tion could teach, and no experience improve. The 
sparrow performs and goes through with the whole 
wonderful process of building, laying, hatching and 
rearing, as successfully the first time as the last. And 
whence is all this to the little bird of the air, if not 
from the omnipresent and infinite Spirit? Who or 
what leads the young female bird to prepare a nest, 
untaught and undirected, long before she has need of 
it ? Who instructs each particular species in its own 
peculiar style of architecture ? And when the first 
egg is brought forth, who teaches her what she must 
do with it ? or that it is a thing to be taken care of, 
that it must be laid and preserved in the nest ? How 
comes she to know that her young are contained in the 
eggs? for certain it is, that there is nothing in the 
external aspect, or in the internal composition of them, 
which could lead even the most enlightened and sci- 
entific mind, previous to experience, to conjecture that 
out of them presently would come forth living, perfect 
birds like herself. And the germ of future life being 
wrapped in the egg, who teaches its little owner that 
heat will develop and mature that germ? Who 
acquaints her with the fact that, her own body pos- 



THE FIFTH DAY. 439 

sesses the precise kind and degree of warmth required ? 
And what is it that holds her so constantly and so 
long upon the nest, amid light and darkness, storm 
and sunshine, without the least knowledge or idea as 
to what the result or fruit of all this toil and self-denial 
is to be? Here, then, are operations carried on, and 
effects produced, which must constrain every candid 
mind to recognize in them the invisible hand of God. 

Again, the migration of birds — how astonishing is 
all this ? " The stork in the heavens knoweth her 
appointed times ; and the turtle and the crane and the 
swallow observe the time of their coming." So fixed 
are the dates of departing and returning with many 
tribes of the feathered race that, "in certain Eastern 
countries at the present day, almanacs are timed and 
bargains struck upon the data they supply." Now, 
who informs them that the day is come for them to 
take their leave ? or announces to them that the time 
has arrived for their return? Without science, with- 
out a map, without a compass, without a way mark, 
who acquaints them with the direction they are to 
take? or measures out for them the length of the 
journey they have to perform ? Who enables them to 
pursue undeviatingly their course over pathless oceans, 
and through the trackless voids of the atmosphere, 
alike in the day time and in the night season, and to 
arrive exactly at the same spot from year to year? 
To whom shall we ascribe this extraordinary power — 
to God, or to the little bird ? It must be either to the 



440 THE FIFTH DAY. 

one, or to the other. It is obvious that the little bird 
does not possess either the reasoning powers, or the 
geographical acquaintance, or the meteorological knowl- 
edge, which would enable it either to plan or to carry 
out such astonishing enterprises. Indeed, could man 
thus, amid all storms and darkness, infallibly steer his 
voyages over the main, it would render superfluous 
the use of his compass and sextant, and enable him 
at once to dispense with his trigonometry and 
logarithms. Whatever name, then, we may give this 
mysterious power, and in whatever light we may 
regard these astonishing facts, correct and sound rea- 
soning, as well as the Scripture, will lead us to the 
conviction and acknowledgment of the illustrious 
Newtou, that all this is done through the immediate 
influence and guidance of Him, " in whom all live and 
move and have their being," and without whom " not 
a sparrow falleth to the ground." 

In the feathered population of our globe we also 
behold, not proofs only, but most interesting and de- 
lightful displays of the goodness of God. The very 
introduction of the winged race into tho new-made 
world was, in itself, a demonstration of the benevolence 
of the Divine Mind, as they constitute one of its most 
beautiful and lovely features. By the infinite diversity 
of their forms, sizes, and colors; by their wonderful 
instincts, and endearing associations; by their varied, 
and often brilliant plumage; by their swift and airy 
and playful flights ; by their interesting and instructive 



THE FIFTH DA Y. 441 

works and habits ; and, by their diversified notes and 
warblings — the birds of the air add a thousand charms 
to the earth as a habitation for man. In ways without 
number do they minister both to his pleasure and profit 
— with their voices pouring the thrill of joy into the 
hope of his youth; with their flesh refreshing the 
strength of his manhood; and with their feathers 
soothing and warming the feebleness of his old age. 
Who has not been charmed by their melodious voices, 
resounding like a song of praise through the echoing 
forest ? Who has not felt the pleasing inspiration of 
their presence, when contemplating with enraptured 
eye the lovely face of nature ? In opening spring and 
glorious summer, how alive is every grove and thicket 
with their busy labors and cheery songs. And all this 
prevails over nearly every region of the earth's surface. 
If we leave our own temperate and charming zone, and 
advance to the higher latitudes of the globe, and pass 
within the polar circles, even there we shall witness 
similar scenes of happiness, for there are the great 
breeding grounds of the sea-birds, where they gather 
themselves together in countless myriads, and in the 
midst of abundant food and undisturbed quietude, 
taste the sweets of that mutual love, which is an 
emanation of the Divine Benevolence, the source of all 
happiness to earth and heaven. Truly, the earth is 
full of the riches of God's goodness ; and is it not the 
design and desire of his Paternal Heart, by all these 
wonders of love, to call our attention, and to win our 



442 THE FIFTH DAY. 

affect ion to Himself, as the Great Fountain of all 
good ? 

Birds are living parables. In a manner equally 
beautiful and impressive are they pointed at by the 
Divine Teacher to inspire confidence in the care of our 
heavenly Father, and to allay within us all undue 
anxiety for the future. Looking down in the tender 
and abounding compassion of His soul upon benighted 
and erring humanity, laboring, restless, fevered, about 
the petty provisions of the present life; anxiously 
looking onward to the future; borrowing the distresses 
of the morrow to aggravate those of to-day; loading 
themselves with burdens of grief which do not belong 
to them, and which they are not required to bear — 
surveying with deep compassion, I say, this scene of 
toil, and sleepless anxiety, and wasting solicitude, in 
which mortals are embroiled, the Divine Friend of 
sinners, the Sympathizer with human woe, stretches 
forth His hand, and lifts up His voice, saying, " Take 
no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, and what 
ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall 
put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body 
than raiment ? Behold the fowls of the air ; for they 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; 
yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they ?" Than this, nothing can be 
more beautiful in description, nothing more conclusive 
in reasoning. 

From a fowl of the air the Great Teacher, who spake 
as never man spoke^ has read to us another lesson of 



THE FIFTH DAY. 443 

inimitable pathos and encouragement — it is from the 
conduct of the domestic lien toward her young brood. 
Behold her : what devoted affection, how vigilant for 
their safety, how diligent for their sustenance, how 
ready to interpose even her life for their protection ! 
When an enemy appears, how anxiously does she call 
to assemble them, that she may cover them under her 
wings. When a shower or when the night approaches, 
with what kind complacence does she hide them 
amongst her feathers, and communicate to them the 
vital warmth of her own body. It is by this most 
beautiful and affecting image that our blessed Lord sets 
forth the anxious and inextinguishable compassion of 
His heart for sinners, even for the most guilty and un- 
grateful — " Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest 
the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, 
how often would I have gathered thy children together, 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not." 

To the foregoing, I cannot resist the temptation of 
adding another lesson of holy writ, drawn from the 
eagle's method of exciting her young to attempt their 
first flight. "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth 
over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh 
them, beareth them on her wings : so Jehovah alone 
did lead him." Of a part of this instructive proceeding 
of the eagle, Sir Humphrey Davy was once an eye- 
witness. " I once saw a very interesting sight," says 
he, " above one of the crags of Ben Nevis. Two parent 



444 THE FIFTH DAY. 

eagles were teaching their offspring, two young birds, 
the manoeuvres of flight. They began by rising from 
the top of the mountain, in the eye of the sun ; it was 
about mid-day, and bright for that climate. They at 
first made small circles, and the young birds imitated 
them; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had 
made their first flight, and then took a second and 
larger gyration, always rising towards the sun, and en- 
larging their circle of flight, so as to make a gradually 
extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, 
apparently flying better as they mounted ; and they 
continued this sublime kind of exercise, always rising, 
till they became mere points in the air, and the young 
ones were lost and afterwards their parents to our 
aching sight." — What a lesson is there in this narrative 
to every Christian parent. How powerfully does this 
conduct of the parent eagles appeal to such to teach 
their children betimes to look toward heaven and the 
Sun of Righteousness, and to elevate their desires and 
affections thither more and more on the wings of faith 
and love, themselves all the while going before them, 
and encouraging them by their example. 

INSECTS. 

And God created every winged thing after his hind. 

On the fifth day were also produced the Insect popu- 
lation of the new-made world, for these, as well as 
birds, must be included in the term ivinged thing. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 445 

This department of animated nature presents to us a 
field of study all but illimitable. Insects being by far 
the most numerous and diversified of all the living or- 
ders that occupy the dry land. Not less than 100,000 
different species are already known, and many more, 
doubtless, remain to be discovered. A distinguished 
naturalist has made the statement, that there are 
probably six species of insects to every species of plants ; 
this estimate, therefore, would make the entire number 
of insect species on the face of the globe considerably 
over half a million. The insect tribes are of all con- 
ceivable forms, habits, and instincts. Volumes on vol- 
umes have been written concerning their organizations, 
powers, and doings, yet without in any way exhausting 
the fruitful subject. 

In no province of the animal kingdom do we find 
Divine invention, design and adaptation, more diversi- 
fied, or more conspicuously displayed, than in the insect 
race. Upon these fairy beings the Creator has bestowed 
by far the choicest gifts of animal powers; in them 
may be discovered all the mechanical instruments and 
apparatus required for the execution of those varied 
movements which we witness in the larger animals; and 
which, though almost peculiar to the different classes of 
those animals, are here frequently united in the same 
individual. Insects swim, dive, creep, walk, run, leap, or 
fly, with as much facility as fishes, reptiles, quadrupeds, or 
birds. But besides these, a great number have also move- 
ments peculiar to themselves, and of which we meet no 
example in other departments of the animal kingdom. 



446 THE FIFTH DAY. 

To fit them for all their peculiar movements and 
functions, the insect system is often found complicate.d 
and wonderful beyond all description. A distinguished 
French entomologist spent several years in examining 
the structure of a single insect, and then left the work 
unfinished. In the body of an insect about an inch long, 
another naturalist enumerated 306 plates, composing 
the structure of the outer envelope; 494 muscles 
for putting them in motion; 24 pairs of nerves; 
and 48 pairs of breathing organs. Nothing can ex- 
ceed the perfection of the minutest parts of the insect 
organization. The finest thread in a spider's web, 
which can scarcely be seen, is said to be composed of 
no less than 4,000 strands. On a single wing of a 
butterfly have been found 100,000 scales; and on that 
of a silkworm moth 400.000; each of these minute 
scales being a marvel of beauty and completeness in 
itself. So thin are the wings of many insects that 
50,000 placed over each other would only be a quarter 
of an inch thick ; and yet, thin as they are, each is 
double. And when we consider, still further, the in- 
comprehensibly delicate contrivances, and exquisite 
borings, and claspings, and jointings, which enter into 
the frame of an animated being a thousand times less 
than a mite, we cannot but be filled with adoring wonder 
in view of these living productions of the Creator's hand. 

The bodies of insects are furnished with a great 
variety of external members or limbs. They have in 
general six legs, and the majority of them four wings ; 



THE FIFTH DAY. 447 

to these, in many species, are added antennae or a pair 
of feelers, an awl or ovipositor, a proboscis, and in a few 
also a sting. These all are found instruments of aston- 
ishing mechanical contrivances when examined through 
a powerful microscope. Equally remarkable are the 
mouths of insects; here we have the biting jaws of the 
beetle, the piercing proboscis of the bug, the long and 
elegant sucker of the butterfly, the licking tongue of 
the bee, the cutting lancets of the horse-fly, the sting 
tube of the gnat, and various other forms and modifica- 
tions of this important organ. 

Insects do not breathe through their mouth ; conse- 
quently they have no voice, no power of song or speech. 
The various sounds they make, it is said, are generally 
produced by their wings. The air is brought into con- 
tact with their blood, that is to say, they breathe by 
means of little spiral orifices or holes, ranged in rows 
along their sides. The number of these breathing 
orifices differs in different species ; some have ten pairs, 
some twenty, some forty, and some more still. A few 
species have their respiratory apparatus on their backs, 
while others still, breathe through their tails. 

Insects are endowed with all the senses possessed by 
larger animals. The sense of touch is principally seated 
in the antennae ; it is by means of these organs they 
seem to measure bodies, try to lift them, and ascertain 
if they are too heavy, too hot, or too cold. Their sense 
of smell is delicate, and the slightest odor appears to 
strike them ; distant honey attracts bees, and tainted 



448 THE FIFTH DAY. 

meat draws flies from afar. Hearing also, in many at 
least, is quite acute; grasshoppers, spiders, and other 
insects have been trained to respond to a given signal 
or call. Nor has the sense of taste been denied them, 
and of this they give decided evidence whenever a 
choice is set before them. 

Insects are likewise endowed with sight. The eyes 
in numerous species are among the most curious and 
wonderful of all the works of the Creator on earth. 
Like birds, the eyes of some are formed to see in the 
dusk, and those of others in the broad and bright 
daylight. Certain aquatic species have several pairs, 
some looking up, and some down; so that while 
swimming on the water, the little creature can at once 
see the fish which threatens him from beneath, and 
the bird that is ready to pounce upon him from above. 
Others have three little eyes, arranged in the form of a 
triangle, on their heads, making three powerful micro- 
scopes; these are found in insects inhabiting dimly- 
lighted places. On the head of a fly are two large 
protuberances, one on each side ; these are its organs 
of vision. The whole surface of these prominences is 
covered with a multitude of small hemispheres, 
arranged closely and with the utmost regularity. 
These little hemispheres have each of them a minute 
transparent convex lens in the middle, each of which 
has a distinct branch of the optic nerve ministering 
to it ; so that the different lenses may be considered as 
so many distinct eyes. Of these eyes, the beetle has 






THE FIFTH DAY. 449 

on each side 3,180; the common house-fly 4,000 ; the 
drone-fly 7,000; and the dragon-fly 13,500 — each of 
which, in all these, is capable of receiving and forming 
a distinct image of any object that may stand or lie 
before it. Leuwenhoek, having adjusted the eye of a 
fly for the purpose, could see distinctly in each of these 
diminutive lenses, though not larger than the point of 
the finest needle, the whole steeple of a church, which 
was 299 feet high, and 750 feet distant; and then 
turning it toward a neighboring house, saw through 
many of these little hemispheres, not only the front of 
the house, but also the doors and windows, and could 
discern distinctly whether the windows were open or 
shut! Such a piece of mechanism transcends all 
comprehension. 

Some tribes of insects appear to be endowed with a 
faculty answering, to a certain extent, the purposes of 
speech. They utter no sounds, indeed — none at least 
audible to the human ear ; but their language is that 
of signs and motions. On the abstraction of the queen- 
bee, those sensible of the loss have been observed, in 
traversing the hive, to cross their antennae over others 
they may encounter, and strike them gently, on which, 
as if distinctly apprised thereby of the disaster, the 
bees which thus receive the intelligence hurry away in 
the greatest uneasiness and alarm. A similar mode of 
communication has been observed among ants. Here 
the signal denoting danger is made by the ant striking 
its head against the corselet of every ant which it 

29 



450 THE FIFTH DAY, 

chances to meet. Each ant on receiving this intima- 
tion immediately sets about repeating the same signal 
to the next ant which may come in its way ; and the 
alarm is thus disseminated with astonishing rapidity 
throughout the whole society. Sentinels are, at all 
times, stationed on the outside of the nest for the 
purpose of apprising the inhabitants of any danger that 
may be at hand. On the attack of an enemy, these 
guardians enter quickly into the nest, and spread the 
intelligence on every side ; the whole swarm is soon in 
motion, and while the greater number of ants rush 
forward with desperate fury to repel the attack, others, 
which are entrusted with the eggs and larvae, hasten 
to remove their charge to places of greater security. 

Many of the insect tribes also give unmistakable 
evidence of their being actuated by the passions of love 
and hatred, joy and fear, sympathy and anger. These 
are plainly exhibited in some by significant actions, 
and in others by a variety of sounds, which, however 
inexpressive to the careless observer, are doubtless full 
of meaning to themselves. Accordingly, we sometimes 
see them fearless with anger, sometimes fleeing in 
terror, sometimes intoxicated with pleasure; now we 
witness them courting their favorites, and now assault- 
ing their enemies ; here we behold them fluttering in 
joyous affection over their young, there exulting in 
triumph over their foes. These are all scenes often 
observed in and about both the hive and the ant-hill, 
And demonstrations of insect passions equally striking 



THE FIFTH DAY. 451 

may be daily witnessed around every spider's retreat. 
Let a fly, through carelessness or by accident, become 
entangled in his web, and what a spectacle ensues ! 
How manifest the terror and despair of the unfortunate 
fly at the approach of its inexorable enemy — how 
frantic its efforts to escape from his clutches — how 
touching its last and dying struggles ! On the other 
hand, what exultation in the spider ; what ferocity in 
plunging his fangs into his helpless victim ; what 
malignant cruelty in every movement! Who can 
contemplate such a scene, and not be sensibly affected 
even by the passions of insects ; or fail to regard them 
as a vivid mimicry of the mightier paroxysms of man ? 
Insects excel in strength. Their muscles are en- 
dowed, in proportion to their size, with power far 
superior to that of larger animals. Ants will carry 
loads which are forty or fifty times heavier than their 
own weight. The beetle can move a weight one 
hundred and twelve times greater than its own. The 
house-fly's wing has a power of six hundred strokes in 
a second, which can impel it through a space of thirty- 
five feet ; whilst the speed of a race horse is but ninety 
feet a second. A dragon-fly can dart through the air 
at the rate of sixty miles an hour ; and the dexterity 
of this insect is more surprising than its swiftness, for 
it is able to do what no bird can — it is able to stop 
instantaneously in the midst of its most rapid course, 
and change the direction of its flight, going sideways or 
backward, without altering the position of its body. 



452 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Thousands of bees hang one to another, without de- 
taching or tearing asunder the feet of the upper ones : 
how many human beings could thus hang one upon 
another ? Were an elephant, as strong in proportion to 
its weight as a stag-beetle, it would be able to tear up 
rocks and level mountains. The strength of insects 
appears equally astonishing in the distances many of 
them are capable of leaping. The cuckoo-spit frog- 
hopper can leap more than two hundred and fifty times 
its own length ; and could a horse spring the distance, 
in proportion to his weight, that a flea can in proportion 
to its weight, he could at once clear the loftiest peak 
of the Andes, and at a single bound cross a continent. 
The feats of agility and strength exhibited by insects 
are, indeed, very surprising. 

Nothing, perhaps, connected with insects has so 
much arrested the attention and excited the wonder 
of common observers, as their mode of reproduction. 
Almost all the insect species are oviparous, and their 
progeny pass through four distinct states of existence. 
They are first contained in eggs, which are deposited 
by their parents in suitable situations, and with a 
degree of instinctive care, which fills us with wonder. 
From the eggs they are hatched into active and 
rapacious grubs, maggots, or caterpillars, according to 
the tribe to which they belong. Having attained their 
maturity in this latter state, they retire to some safe 
retreat, and envelop themselves in silk, or wrap them- 
selves in a covering of leaves, or entomb themselves in 



THE FIFTH DAY. 453 

the earth, according to the habits of the species; and 
now for a time, with many of them, all appearance of 
vitality is suspended, and they seem like miniature 
mummies. Having remained till the proper season in 
this chrysalis state, as it is termed, they burst and 
throw off the vestments of the tomb, and with beauty 
of form, and with powers before unknown, they come 
forth perfect insects, and enter upon the duties and 
enjoyments of their fourth and last stage of existence. 
Nothing can be more wonderful than these transforma- 
tions. Here we behold a hairy caterpillar metamor- 
phosed into a gorgeous butterfly — and observe how 
great the change. We have four beautiful wings 
where there were none before ; a tubular proboscis in 
the place of a mouth, with jaws and teeth; six long 
legs instead of fourteen feet ! Herein we see a most 
astonishing process, indeed, and one full of interest and 
hopeful intimation to man, as we shall presently have 
occasion to state more at large. 

The blessing of fecundity was bestowed in all its 
power and fulness upon the insect races, as upon the 
fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. Indeed, all 
language is inadequate to convey an idea of "the 
power to bring forth " with which these little creatures 
were endowed in the day of their creation. They 
have multiplied till they have literally covered the 
whole earth. They abound wherever we go; they 
enter our houses and dwell with us; they cross our 
paths, frequent our gardens, swarm our fields, buzz 



454 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

through the woods, and swim upon the waters. Their 
hum falls upon our ear by day and by night. The 
fecundity of insects, of course, is more marked in some 
species than in others. The spider will produce from 
100 to 200 of its kind at a single brood. A house-fly 
will lay 177 eggs. Some silk-worms lay from 1,000 to 
2,000 eggs; the wasp deposits 3,000; the ant from 
4,000 to 5,000. The queen-bee, according to Kirby 
and Spence, lays in one season a number ranging from 
40,000 to 50,000. But above all, the white ant 
produces 86,400 eggs each day, which, continuing for a 
month, gives the astonishing number of 2,592,000 — a 
number far exceeding that produced by any known 
animal above animalcula. These may appear like the 
statements in which a fictionist might indulge, but 
they are the sober truths discovered by the most 
painstaking and cautious observers. And it seems to 
be necessary that such conditions should prevail. 
These insects, and all the lower tribes of the animal 
kingdom, furnish food for the more elevated races. 
Thousands are born in an hour, and millions upon 
millions perish in a day. 

In many low and luxuriant regions, gnats, mos- 
quitoes, and a variety of other insects, thicken the 
whole atmosphere; while in other districts, that are 
higher and drier, the ground is alive with ants, 
crickets, grasshoppers, and innumerable hosts of other 
tribes. Swarms of locusts have sometimes shut out 
the light of the sun, and laid waste whole kingdoms. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 455 

At the call of Moses, " locusts came up over the land 
of Egypt, and rested in all her coasts ; very grievous 
were they, for they covered the face of the whole earth, 
so that the land was darkened ; and they did eat every 
herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees; and 
there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in 
the herbs of the field, throughout all the land of 
Egypt." The prophet Joel gives a most animated 
description of a similar visitation, that was brought on 
the land of Judea, at a later period, for the iniquity of 
the people. 

Modern travellers have frequently, and in different 
parts of the globe, witnessed scenes that abundantly 
corroborate these accounts of the sacred volume. Mr. 
Barrow records that, in the Southern district of Africa, 
which he visited, the surface of nearly 2,000 square 
miles might be said to be covered by locusts. The 
water of a wide river was scarcely visible in conse- 
quence of the innumerable drowned locusts which 
floated on its surface. By and by these countless hosts 
were driven into the sea by a violent wind ; and their 
bodies, being thrown back again on the shore, formed 
a bank about three feet high, and of many miles in 
length. Another eye-witness of a locust army says, 
" The column extended frve miles, and the insects flew 
so close together that they darkened the light of the 
sun as an eclipse ; whilst the sound of their wings was 
as the distant roar of the ocean in a storm." Thus we 
see that the blessing of reproducing power, bestowed 



456 THE FIFTH DAY. 

on the fifth day, still remains unwasted and undimin- 
ished after the lapse of so many ages. 

Of all animated beings, insects exhibit the most 
numerous, and the most surprising displays of 
instinctive sagacity. This opens to the student of 
nature a wide field of wonders; but our limits will 
permit us to notice a few examples only. 

The ingenuity, cunning, and stratagems of the Spider, 
have been subjects of observation and interest from 
remote antiquity. Solomon mentions this little crea- 
ture among the small things that are wise upon the 
earth, and as manifesting its wisdom by " taking hold 
with her hands." And truly, what the spider does 
with her hands, and her spinning organs, is very 
wonderful. The garden spider is a most skilful 
aeronaut, and practised his art with consummate suc- 
cess, long ages before its discovery by man; it 
constructs its balloon with silk of its own manufacture, 
and wafts along, or ascends on high, with ease and 
rapidity, in its airy chariot. The water spider, from 
time immemorial, has been familiar with all the 
triumphs of the diving-bell; it fabricates for itself a 
covering in which it can safely dive, remain at the 
bottom of pools and streams, there build for itself a 
dry and comfortable habitation ; from this it daily 
ascends in quest of prey, and having secured it, carries 
it down to his subaquatic mansion, to be devoured at 
its pleasure. Another species, called the builder, is 
eminently gifted with architectural talents; but its 



THE FIFTH DAY. 457 

structures are always under ground. There it ex- 
cavates rooms, bores galleries, forms vaults, constructs 
bridges, and carves out entrances. Its habitation, 
when completed and garnished, is always remarkable 
for the extreme neatness which reigns there. "What- 
ever the humidity of the soil in which it is built, water 
never penetrates it; the walls are nicely covered with 
tapestry of silk, having usually the lustre of satin, and 
are almost always of dazzling whiteness. But the most 
remarkably ingenious of all the contrivances about its 
habitation is the door at its entrance, which lacks 
nothing but a lock, for it is nicely fitted to a frame, 
and actually works upon a hinge. This door, upon 
close examination, is found to be a complicated fabric, 
being formed of no less than thirty layers of earth and 
web, emboxed in each other. On the outside, it is 
coated with soil similar to the surrounding earth, so 
that the existence of an entrance would hardly be 
suspected. And what is very striking, the door is 
so hinged that, whether the spider enters or goes out, 
it is sure to shut of itself. The advantage of this 
adjustment is great and obvious ; for, whether it darts 
out upon its prey, or retreats before an enemy, no time 
need be lost in shutting the door. In these operations 
of spiders, we discover designs so wise, contrivances so 
happy, and adaptations so successful, as plainly prove 
that the blessed Creator has taught each the lessons of 
its life-duties. 

Equally remarkable are the instinctive doings of 



458 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Ants. These diminutive creatures live in numerous 
communities, and under a republican form of govern- 
ment, every individual enjoying a large measure of 
personal liberty, having its own special office, and 
performing its duties with assiduous diligence. They 
constitute a united, peaceful, and happy society. Of 
ants there are several distinct species, and we glance 
first at what are familiarly called hill-ants. In building 
their habitation, the first business with these is to 
excavate a cavity in the earth; this accomplished, 
one troop immediately sets about collecting suitable 
materials, and working them into a roof over the 
entrance ; while another detachment mixes up the 
earth with particles of leaves and grass, thus rendering 
it more suitable for building. Here and there open 
spaces are left, which, after the skeleton of the building 
is completed, are converted into galleries, which lead to 
different apartments, all of which meet in a large 
chamber in the centre of the nest, which is the favorite 
residence of the ants. The roof is of a conical form, 
and is neatly thatched with straw, so as to shed all 
rain. They work principally in the day-time ; toward 
night all the avenues, like the gates of a walled city, 
are carefully closed one after another, with, what must 
seem to them, huge logs of timber. Before the last is 
thus secured, they retire inside to repose for the night ; 
three or four, however, remain outside to perform the 
duty of sentinels. Early every morning the avenues 
are again opened, and the ants resume their several 




HABITATIONS OF TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS. 



THE FIFTH DAY. 459 

avocations. In rainy weather they remain closed the 
entire day ; and at any time that rain commences, they 
are forthwith barricaded. 

The sagacity of these tiny people is truly marvellous. 
A close and experienced observer once, watching with 
interest their various movements, discovered one trying 
to drag along a little bit of wood much larger than its 
own body. "After getting along for a time pretty 
well," says he, " the poor little fellow came to a steep 
ascent, and found, to his utter dismay, that it was too 
heavy, and that he could proceed with it no further. 
Some of his friends, however, happening to pass by, 
came to his assistance, and by their united efforts the 
piece of wood was soon placed on the summit. They 
then left our hero to work by himself, fearing, perhaps, 
that further assistance might lead to indolence. So all 
alone he again manfully resumed his task ; but, alas ! 
a fresh difficulty soon presented itself. His load was 
thicker at one end than at the other, and while 
dragging it along, he incautiously drew it in between 
two pieces of wood, where it remained firmly fixed. 
He pulled, and pulled, but in vain; there it staid. 
He paused — at length, as if a happy thought had 
struck him, he darted to the other end, and dragged it 
out, took it a short way round, and soon arrived at 
his destination." * Here we see instinctive sagacity 
carried to the very borders of reason itself. 

Let us look at another species, the Legionary Ant. 

* Imperial Magazine, No. 127. 



460 THE FIFTH DAY. 

These live in great part by plunder, and enslaving 
ants of another class. The history of one of their 
marauding expeditions, as given by Huber, is full of 
interest, and will serve to convey an idea of their 
general character. Whilst walking in the environs 
of Geneva, towards the close of a fine summer's day, 
" I observed," says he, " close at my feet, traversing 
the road, a column of legionary ants. They moved 
with considerable rapidity, and occupied a space of 
from eight to ten inches in length, by three or four in 
breadth. They soon approached a nest inhabited by 
a colony of the negro ants, the dome of which rose 
above the grass. Some of the negroes were guarding 
the entrance ; but on the discovery of an approaching 
army, darted forth on the advancing legion. The 
alarm spread instantly into the interior, whence their 
companions rushed forth in multitudes to defend their 
homes. The legionaries, the bulk of whose army lay 
only at the distance of two paces, quickened their 
march, and when they arrived at the hill, the whole 
battalion fell furiously upon the negroes, who, after 
an obstinate though brief contest, fled to their subterra- 
nean galleries. The legionaries now ascended the 
dome, collected in crowds on the summit, and taking 
possession of the principal avenues, left some of their 
companions to excavate other openings in the exterior 
walls. They soon effected this, and through the 
breach the remainder of the army made their entrance; 
but in about three or four minutes afterwards issued 



TEE FIFTH DAY. 461 

forth again, each carrying a pupa or grub, with which 
booty they retraced their route. On arriving at their 
own encampment, thus laden with the trophies of 
victory, their domestic servants, of the same negro 
race, came forth to welcome the returning warriors, 
caressing them, and presenting them with food ; whilst 
the legionaries, in their turn, handed over to them 
their baby captives to be carried into the interior of 
the nest, there to be nursed and cared for until they 
arrived at maturity. From which it appears that the 
only object of these predatory expeditions, is to obtain 
possession of the young, while in the insensible state 
of pupa, or ant babyhood. The plunderers never 
make prisoners of the old negroes. The consequence 
is, that all their captives become domesticated without 
difficulty, and become obedient and useful servants to 
their owners — nursing their young, transporting them 
from one part of the colony to another, gathering 
provisions, building new galleries, and acting as faithful 
guards and sentinels to their captors, who rest tran- 
quilly at the bottom of their subterranean city, till the 
hour fixed for another expedition arrives." 

To witness such performances carried on among 
insects amazes, and well nigh confounds us ! And the 
reader, while he wonders at the striking indications 
of intelligence which they exhibit, may be startled, 
and, perhaps, shocked, to discover thus a perfect 
system of invasion, capture and slavery, even among 
ants. But a moment's reflection may serve to relieve 



462 TEE FIFTH DAY. 

his mind. The captives are as well off here as they 
would have been in their own colony; they are con- 
scious of no degradation, and fare in all respects as 
well as their masters. 

Let us take one more example of instinctive skill 
and sagacity, that of the Bee. No nation of the earth, 
it has been said, has had its history written so often as 
this curious little insect. Bees live, not singly or in 
pairs, but in large communities, of which the Queen-bee 
is mother as well as sovereign, who is always treated 
with the greatest respect and attention by all her 
subjects. Bees are altogether a most wonderful people 
— their regulations and loyalty, their science in plan- 
ning their habitations, their skill in building them, 
their division of labor, their co-operation in difficulties, 
their economy of provisions and materials, their un- 
tiring industry, their providence in accumulating for 
the future, their inviolable observance of law and 
order, and their consequent, undisturbed harmony and 
peace as a society — are all subjects of most interesting 
and instructive study. The interior of the hive pre- 
sents us, indeed, with a concourse of marvels ; it is a 
city on a small scale, with its dwellings and streets, 
built on the most perfect plan that could possibly have 
been contrived for the use of the inhabitants. Some 
of these buildings are storehouses for food ; in some the 
citizens live ; and a few, more capacious than the rest, 
are for the royal family. And the material of which 
this city is built is one which man, with all his skill 



THE FIFTH DAY. 463 

and resources, knows not how to produce ; and the city 
itself the most experienced architect could not have 
planned with more wisdom. 

The combs are composed of two ranges of cells 
opening on the opposite sides; these are built about 
half an inch apart, thus leaving a commodious street 
between them. There are also openings left through 
different parts of the combs, forming cross lanes, to 
save time in going round. The shape of each cell in 
the comb is that of a hexagon, or six-sided tube. This 
figure possesses many important advantages over every 
other that could have been employed — no space or 
room is lost, the cells fitting close together ; the great- 
est saving of wax is secured, each partition forming the 
sides of two contiguous cells, and one floor answering 
for the two ranges of cells. By adopting this figure 
and arrangement, each cell is also greatly strengthened 
by all the adjoining cells. The bottom of every cell is 
not a flat piece, but terminates in a three-sided point, 
and this rests against the point where three partitions 
meet on the other side, and is thus supported by the 
walls of the cell opposite, which gives it all the 
strength possible, while this is exactly the best plan to 
save the wax and the room. 

This problem was once given to a celebrated mathe- 
matician, namely, To show how a certain quantity of 
wax could be made to form cells of the same size and 
shape, so as to give the greatest strength and the most 
room, and at the same time to use the smallest amount 
of the material. After considering the question in 



464 THE FIFTH DA Y. 

every aspect possible, and trying it by the strictest 
rules of geometry, the answer proved that the bees had 
acted as if acquainted with all these principles, and 
had, in the most simple and perfect manner, secured 
every advantage of arrangement in the building of 
their cells. How marvellous that a diminutive insect, 
so trifling in the sight of man, should be able to do all 
this ! And what unspeakably heightens the marvel is, 
that every young swarm, without instruction and 
without experience, in its first attempt, accomplishes 
this feat of scientific arrangement with exquisite per- 
fection and unerring skill ! 

In the form, material, arrangement and connection 
of the cells in the honey-comb, we see what is 
unquestionably the result of intelligence, and of no 
ordinary intelligence, as they embrace profound mathe- 
matical principles, which man has only attained by 
difficult and protracted study. And now the question 
is, whose intelligence? To ascribe it to the insect 
would be to endow the infant-bee with scientific 
ability, rivalling that of a Bernoulli or a Brougham. 
But if this we cannot do, it remains for us only to 
ascribe it to the Omnipresent God, who worketh all 
in all. Blind, indeed, must he be, or what is worse, 
wilfully perverse, who can view all this, and fail 
or refuse to acknowledge the guiding power of the 
Supreme and Universal Mind in it. All nature, and 
all life, down to the minutest of the insect tribes, 
reveal a present Deity. Their mysterious works and 
ways are only intelligible in such a presence. And in 



THE FIFTH DAY. . 465 

the marvels of the Bee-hive we witness special and 
vivid evidences of the presence and agency of the 
Unseen Creator. 

REFLECTIONS. 

Insects, like every other class of living creatures, 
have their place to occupy, and their office to fulfil in 
the Divine plan, and form an essential link in the 
great chain of animated nature. Small and insig- 
nificant as they appear, viewed singly, yet taken 
collectively, they make up armies far more potent and 
formidable than either Alexander, or Caesar, or Bona- 
parte ever mustered; and these being everywhere 
dispersed, and daily and hourly at work in their 
several departments, they constitute an agency of great 
power, and no doubt of great good, in the economy of 
the world. We may not be able to determine how, 
or what, each particular species contributes to the 
benefit of the great whole ; but we may be sure that 
their great variety of organs, and their wonderful 
instinctive capacities, have been bestowed upon them 
for ends worthy of the wisdom that produced them. 
The works of the Lord are perfect, and nothing has 
been made in vain. 

" Each moss, 



Each, shell, each crawling insect holds a rank 
Important in the plan of Him who framed 
This scale of beings ; holds a rank, which, lost, 
Would break the chain, and leave a gap, 
That nature's self would rue." 
30 



466 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Insects are an ornament to the earth's scenery, and, 
no doubt, were designed by the munificent Creator to 
be objects of pleasurable observation and study to man. 
" Next to the birds," says Kirby, " nothing adds more 
to the life of the scenes before us, than the vast variety 
of insects that are flying, running and jumping about 
in all directions, all engaged in their several pursuits — 
the bees humming over the flowers, the butterflies 
opening and shutting their painted wings to the sun, 
the swarming gnats in ceaseless maze rising and falling 
alternately in the sunbeams, the beetle wheeling his 
drowsy flight, others coursing over the ground, and the 
grasshopper chirping in every bank — all adding to the 
general harmony, and combining to make the general 
picture one of life and love ; and speaking, each in a 
different sort and manner, the praises of its Creator, 
and calling upon man to join in the general hymn." 

The insect creation, at which we have now glanced, 
teaches us that God is to be seen in the least as well 
as in the greatest of His works. He is in all and 
through all. The guidance of His finger is to be 
traced as distinctly in the circles of the spider's web as 
in the orbits of the planets ; and the operation of His 
hand is as plainly seen in the lustre of an insect's wing, 
as in the resplendent disk of the sun, which sheds 
light and life on surrounding globes. When we con- 
template the insect world — the vast number and 
variety of its species; the wonderful powers and 
faculties with which they are endowed ; the delicacy 



THE FIFTH DAY. 467 

and complication of their parts; their strength of 
limbs and swiftness of flight; their exquisite organs 
of sight and touch and smell and hearing; their 
quickness to discern their enemies, and their ability to 
communicate alarm ; their manifestation of love and 
hatred, anger and joy; their ingenious homes and 
instinctive skill ; their reproductive energies and mar- 
vellous transformations; their cunning, artifice, and 
stratagems; their tact, industry, and perseverance, 
together with a multitude of other traits and operations 
— when we contemplate all these, I say, we find our- 
selves surrounded with a profusion of evidences, 
baffling every attempt to comprehend them all, that 
every living thing is the work of the Divine Hand, 
and that no animated being is too minute for His 
notice, or too humble for the visitation of His care. 
Nor should we, assuredly, regard them beneath our 
notice. Study and reflection upon these, the handi- 
works of the Creator, were intended to feed the flame 
of religion in the soul, and to maintain within it an 
abiding sense of the Divine Presence. Every insect is 
a lesson full of divinity, and its examination should 
be to us a devotional exercise. And to a mind 
accustomed to consecrate all its perceptions of beauty 
and design to the inward worship of God, 

" How sweet to muse on His skill display' d, 
Infinite skill ! in all that He has made ; 
To trace in nature's most minute design 
The signature and stamp of power Divine ; 



468 THE FIFTH DAY. 

Contrivance exquisite expressed with ease, 

Where unassisted sight no beauty sees ; 

The shapely limb and lubricated joint, 

Within the small dimensions of a point ; 

Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 

His mighty work, who speaks and it is done ; 

Th' Invisible in things scarce seen reveal' d, 

To whom an atom is an ample field." 

— Cowper. 

The insect population of our world exhibits the most 
pleasing evidences that the Creator designed, and has 
provided means of enjoyment and happiness for all 
His creatures, even the lowest and the least. While 
every tribe of these little creatures seem content with 
their lot, and charmed with their own pursuits, some 
species live in a style of felicity and splendor that 
presents the most striking displays of the goodness of 
God. In illustration of this point, I quote the pleasing 
and lively description given by Sir John Hill of his 
discoveries within a fragrant carnation: " Distending 
the lower part of the flower, and adapting my micro- 
scope to take in the whole at one view, its base under 
its influence extended into a vast plain; the slender 
stems of the leaves became trunks of so many stately 
cedars ; the threads in the middle seemed columns of 
massy structure, supporting at the top several orna- 
ments ; and the narrow spaces between were enlarged 
into walks, parterres, and terraces. On the polished 
bottoms of these, brighter than Parian marble, walked 
in pairs, alone, or in larger companies, the winged 
inhabitants ; these from little dusky flies, for such 



THE FIFTH DAY. 469 

only the naked eye would have shown them, were 
raised to glorious, glittering animals, stained with 
living purple, and with a glossy gold, that would have 
made all the labors of the loom contemptible in the 
comparison. I could, at leisure, as they walked 
together, admire their elegant limbs, their velvet 
shoulders, and their silken wings; their backs vying 
with the empyrean in its blue; and their eyes, each 
formed of a thousand others, outglittering the little 
planes on a brilliant ; above description, and too great 
almost for admiration ! I could observe them here 
singling out their favorite females ; courting them with 
the music of their buzzing wings with little songs, 
formed for their little organs ; leading them from walk 
to walk among the perfumed shades, and pointing out 
to their taste the drop of liquid nectar, just bursting 
from some vein within the living trunk — here were 
the perfumed groves, the more than mystic shades, of 
the poet's fancy, realized. Here the happy lovers 
spent their days in joyful dalliance, or, in the triumph 
of their little hearts, skipped after one another from 
stem to stem, among the painted trees, or winged 
their short flight to the close shadow of some broader 
leaf, to revel in the heights of all felicity." In scenes 
such as this, we behold not only the workmanship of 
God, but also the riches of His beneficence toward the 
least of the creatures which His hands have made. 

In the history of insects, we meet with the most 
beautiful illustration that all nature affords of the 



470 THE FIFTH DAY. 

great and distinguishing doctrine of Christianity — the 
Resurrection of the Dead. And to see this, let us 
follow one of these little animals through the marvel- 
lous changes of its existence. Our starting point is a 
diminutive and almost invisible egg ; from this comes 
a worm, scarce an inch long at maturity, doomed to 
draw out its little length to obtain locomotion from 
day to day. Prone on the earth, it is passed and 
repassed unnoticed. Its appointed days in this condi- 
tion drawing to a close, it languishes ; refuses to eat ; 
ceases to move ; becomes wrapped in a silken shroud ; 
this soon changes into a dusky crust ; and in this, as 
in its coffin, it remains apparently dead. The time of 
its sepulture, usually six or seven months, having 
passed away, it begins to acquire new life and vigor ; 
presently it bursts open its confining cell, and comes 
forth ; no longer, however, an offensive crawling worm, 
but changed and fashioned into a beauteous butterfly, 
furnished with limbs and wings, and decked in down 
of purple and gold. It now takes rank with a new 
and superior race of beings ; it mounts the air, ranges 
from flower to flower, rises in exhilarating flights 
towards the glorious orb of day, rejoicing in its new 
and splendid existence. Who but must see in all this 
a striking parallel, and an instructive type of the 
blessed change that awaits the righteous? Like the 
caterpillar worm, they now are doomed for a brief 
period to tread the soil of earth, and then to be laid to 
sleep within the tomb. But they remain there only 



THE FIFTH DAY. 471 

for an appointed time ; a day cometh, when, like the 
worm, they shall come forth from the wreck and ruin 
of the grave, in forms lovely as that of the Son of God, 
and shall mount up with wings, shall join the angelic 
holy throng, and dwell forever with the Lord. Let 
the works of God, then, confirm to us His word; let 
the wonderful display of His power and wisdom, as 
thus seen in the transformation of insects, serve to 
strengthen our faith, and to animate our hope of a 
blessed immortality. 

This metamorphosis of insects supplies an admonition 
to the wicked, as well as an encouragement to the 
righteous. Microscopic examinations have shown that 
the body of the caterpillar contains the future butterfly 
in embryo. At this period, it frequently happens that 
a certain insect, called ichneumon fly, will pierce and 
deposit her eggs in the living body of the caterpillar, 
which are hatched there into grubs or larvae, and feed 
upon the inward parts of their victim. A most 
remarkable circumstance connected with this process 
is, that a caterpillar which has been thus attacked goes 
on feeding, and apparently thriving quite as well, 
during the whole of its larva life, as those that have 
escaped. For, by a wonderful provision of instinct, 
the ichneumon grubs within do not injure any of the 
organs of the caterpillar, but feed only on the future 
butterfly enclosed within it. And, consequently, it is 
hardly possible to distinguish a caterpillar which has 
these enemies within it from those that are untouched. 



472 THE FIFTH DAY. 

But when the period arrives for the close of the cater- 
pillar life, the difference appears. While those unhurt 
emerge into butterflies, of the unfortunate caterpillar 
that has been preyed upon, nothing remains but a 
blackened form — the hidden butterfly has been secretly 
consumed. Striking emblem of a multitude of our 
race ! A secret enemy, Satan, has quietly taken his 
abode within them likewise, there gradually but 
steadily enfeebling and destroying the indwelling soul ; 
yet without producing outwardly any marked change, 
or interfering materially with their well-being during 
the present stage of their existence, and whose fatal 
work may not be detected till the time arrives for the 
last great change ! 



©fa jSfeflt fag. 



Beasts, and Cattle, and Creeping Things are created. 




THE SIXTH DAY. 

Genesis 1 : 24-28. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth 
after his kind : and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth 
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was good. 

BEASTS. 

HE work of this day is but a continuation of that 
of the preceding, both having been employed to 
f| furnish the earth with its living tenants. On 
the fifth day the sea was replenished with fish, 
and the air with fowl and flying things; and to-day 
beasts and cattle, and creeping things shall be brought 
forth for the dry land ; and, finally, man the head and 
crown of all. The history of this day, so far as the 
production of the brute creation is concerned, needs but 
little explanation. 

Let the earth bring forth. It is not to be supposed 
from this particular mode of expression, that creative 
power was delegated to the earth, or that prolific virtue 
was imparted to the soil, to produce its own living 
tenants ; for, in speaking of the actual execution of the 
work in the next verse, it is explicitly stated that it 
was God that created them, one and all. Omnipotence 
alone is adequate to produce living beings. Spontanea 

475 



476 THE SIXTH DAY. 

ous generation of life is a thing unknown. The dis- 
tinguished Agassiz, after having most emphatically 
rejected this notion, speaking merely as a naturalist, 
affirms that, " it is necessary that we recur to a cause 
more exalted, and recognize influences more powerful, 
exercising over all nature an action more direct, if we 
would not move eternally in a vicious circle." Every 
existing living organism has come from a parent, and 
every original parent came from the hand of God, for 
He alone can produce life. 

God made each living creature, it is said, after his 
kind. By this phrase we are to understand, not only 
that God contrived and created the different species of 
animals in all their variety of forms, instincts, and 
habits ; but also, that He so made them, as to produce 
each its own kind, and its own kind only, through all 
its successive generations. It is in virtue of this law, 
a law established throughout the animal kingdom, that 
the several races of animals have been kept distinct 
from the foundation of the world to the present day. 
By this ordination of the Creator, the transmutation of 
species, so much talked of by a certain school of 
infidels, was rendered impossible. " Each and every 
species," says Lyell, " was endowed, at the time of its 
creation, with the attributes and organs by which it is 
now distinguished." But for this, the world long since 
would have been filled with confusion. 

Cattle — under this term are included the various 
species of tame and domestic animals, such as sheep, 



THE SIXTH DAY. 477 

oxen, etc. ; particularly herbivorous creatures. Beasts 
—this word is usually applied in the Scriptures to wild 
animals, such as lions and bears; especially such as 
are carnivorous. Creeping thing— this designates the 
reptile family, such as serpents, frogs, etc. The animal 
creations of this day are all included under these three 
terms. In each of these classes, like those provinces 
of creation already surveyed, we shall meet with in- 
numerable displays of the wisdom and goodness of the 
great Creator. 

CATTLE, or DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
And God made the cattle after their kind. 
Although man was the last work of creation, yet in 
the plan and purpose of God he was the first and the 
head, for the world with its furniture was contrived 
and arranged with manifest reference to his wants and 
convenience. Several species of the animals produced 
on this day seem to have been expressly designed, and 
specifically endowed with their respective qualities, for 
his particular and immediate benefit— some to supply 
him with food, some to furnish him with clothing, and 
some to bow their patient necks to aid him in his toils 
and travels. Indeed, with this class of animals the 
comfort and prosperity of the human family are inti- 
mately connected; peaceful tenants of the earth, they 
also add by their presence fresh and cheering beauty to 
meadow and mountain, and impart life and spirit to 
every scene on which they appear. 



478 TEE SIXTE DAY. 

Of the animals designed for the immediate service of 
man, Sheep offer themselves first to our notice. Sheep 
are associated with the earliest history of the world, 
and the first family of our race ; Abel, we read, was a 
keeper of sheep. These animals are found in great 
variety, and are very valuable to man, as they yield 
him both food and clothing. Hence they have consti- 
tuted an important item of individual and national 
wealth in all ages. At the present day they are raised 
and fed by millions in every quarter of the globe. 
And they can be reared in situations and on soils 
where other domestic animals cannot be supported ; at 
the same time they are susceptible of indefinite 
improvement both as to form of body and quality of 
wool. No domestic creatures, perhaps, are of greater 
value, certainly none that could supply their place. 
Were this gift of the Creator withdrawn, or the race 
suffered to diminish and become extinct, it would be to 
man an incalculable loss. 

Cattle, or the Bovine family, also, were specifically 
formed and constituted to minister to the good of man ; 
and to his dominion they readily yield. Accordingly, 
like sheep, we find that they have been domesticated 
from the earliest times. The patient ox has always 
bowed his neck to the yoke of man, and aided him in 
the toil through which he has been doomed to raise 
and eat his daily bread. And the gentle cow has 
contributed more abundantly towards his sustenance 
and gratification than any other living animal. In 



THE SIXTH DAY. 479 

many respects, we are more dependent on this race of 
creatures than on any other. Cattle are of various 
kinds or species; and these differ widely in size and 
character, from the ungainly Brahmin cattle, scarcely 
exceeding the size of a large mastiff, to those of the 
Eluth Tartars, which often attain the height of seven 
or eight feet. Cattle are also so constituted as to be 
equally capable of enduring the intensity of heat and 
the rigor of cold; they can live and thrive on the 
frozen fields of Iceland, and in the burning deserts of 
Libya; and they readily accommodate themselves in 
disposition and habits, to a remarkable degree, to the 
peculiarities of whatever region they may be placed in. 
They are thus qualified to accompany man in all his 
widespread migrations over the face of the globe. 

The Creator foresaw that man would need another 
and a different assistant — one to carry his burdens, to 
work his fields, and to bear him swiftly in his travels 
-—and in His kindness provided such an assistant in 
the Horse. In this animal are combined all the quali- 
fications that could be desired in such a servant — 
excelling in strength, speed, endurance, docility and 
affection. With a mouth tempered to bear the bit 
without suffering, a foot of firmness to bear additional 
weight under rapid motion, and of a disposition that he 
can be tamed in a few hours, and brought to submit, 
and even to rejoice in his rider. Add to all this that, 
of all quadrupeds the horse reaches the highest point 
of symmetry and perfection ; possessing a most graceful 



480 THE SIXTH LA Y. 

form, an intelligent eye, expressive nostrils, "a neck 
clothed with thunder," and swiftness that often out- 
strips the wind. This striking combination of so many 
rare and noble qualities, seem to prove that the horse 
was expressly made for the service of man; and in 
how many ways this valuable gift of the Creator 
contributes to his necessities, and to his pleasure, are 
too well known to need specification. 

The horse, strong and docile though he be, is not 
well adapted for many parts of the earth; hence in 
those regions man finds another and a most suitable 
help in the Camel. This animal, indeed, is only 
known as the servant and follower of man; and it 
appears to have been distinctly formed by the Author 
of nature to contribute to his comfort in the great 
parched and sandy wildernesses of Asia and Africa, 
where the horse could neither travel nor subsist. The 
camel's feet seem expressly made for travelling over 
the loose deep sands of those regions, being divided 
above, but connected beneath, thus presenting broad 
and pliable surfaces that, like the hunter's snow-shoes, 
bear him up where the compact hoof of the horse 
would sink so far as to impede his progress, and soon 
exhaust his strength. To the camel has also been 
given great strength, and such a patient and docile 
disposition that, with little or no instruction, he will 
kneel down to receive his load and his rider, and has a 
provision, namely, pads, on his knees and breast for 
that purpose. Add to all this, streams and wells being 



THE SIXTH DAY. 481 

scarce, and in general found only at distant intervals 
in these hot deserts, the camel is also provided with an 
additional stomach, or reservoir as it may be regarded, 
in which he can carry a surplus stock of water. The 
hump on his back also is a surplus store of fat, from 
which the system can draw nourishment when deprived 
for a time of his proper food. Thus constituted, this 
remarkable animal will post forward at the rate of six 
or eight miles an hour, through those vast deserts, 
where are neither birds, nor beasts, nor vegetation, nor 
water, and where nothing is to be seen but hills of 
sand and heaps of stone, for a whole week without 
drink, without pasture, or any sustenance whatever. 
In Arabia, and other tropical countries, the camel is 
venerated as a special gift of Heaven, without whose 
help the inhabitants could neither subsist, traffic, nor 
travel. Its milk makes part of their nourishment, 
they feed upon its flesh, they clothe themselves with 
its hair; and, if they fear an invading enemy, their 
camels serve them for rapid flight, and to convey them 
in a single day to the distance of a hundred miles. 
We cannot but admire, in this remarkable instance, 
the beneficent intentions of Providence, in the struc- 
ture, disposition and habits of an animal so exceedingly 
adapted to regions of heat, sterility and drought. If 
we look over the whole animal kingdom, not a beast 
can be found that would supply its place. 

Another beast constituted to be eminently helpful to 

man, in different regions still, is the Elephant. This 
31 



482 THE SIXTH DA Y. 

is the largest animal that treads our globe at the pres- 
ent day ; his average height is from eight to ten feet ; 
and his weight varies from 5,000 to 9,000 pounds. 
His strength is prodigious ; his legs differ from those of 
all other animals, being strong and massive pillars, 
formed with admirable mechanical skill for sustaining 
immense weights. He is capable of bearing on his 
mighty back a battlemented tower, garrisoned with 
armed men ; and will thus advance with fearless step 
to meet the shock of battle, ploughing his way through 
whole serried battalions. His head is large, and con- 
tains two long and heavy tusks ; his neck is short, so 
that it will not admit of the mouth reaching the ground 
to feed. But to counterbalance this defect, and also to 
overcome the difficulty arising from the tusks, the ele- 
phant is provided with an instrument of admirable 
structure in his proboscis or trunk. This he can draw 
up, or shoot out, or twist in any direction at his pleas- 
ure. Its essential office is to supply the animal with 
food, and with it he can crop the grass at his feet, or 
browse the twigs and leaves over his head ; through it 
also he can draw up water, and afterwards discharge it 
into the throat, or over the body. This proboscis ter- 
minates in a flexible point like a finger, and which 
appears to be endowed with the sense of touch, so that 
with it he can readily hold any small object, or pick 
up a piece of money, or even a pin, from the floor. He 
is, moreover, the most sagacious of all animals; and 
when tamed, he becomes the most gentle, obedient, 



THE SIXTH DAY. 483 

and affectionate of domestic animals, capable of being 
trained to any service necessary in those climates of 
which he is a native. He is endowed with the faculty 
of memory in an astonishing degree, and displays so 
much moderation, gratitude, and fidelity in his attend- 
ance on man, that the ancients, misled by his demeanor, 
considered him to possess the moral virtues. 

A multitude of well authenticated accounts of the 
elephant's sagacity and affectionate disposition are on 
record. "The Philosophical Transactions" relate an 
instance where this animal had conceived a special at- 
tachment to an infant. " He was never happy except 
when the infant was near him. The nurse, therefore, 
frequently took the child in its cradle, and placed the 
latter between his feet. He at last refused his food 
when the infant was absent. When it was asleep, he 
watched it with great solicitude, and drove off the flies 
with his trunk as they approached. If it awoke and 
cried, he would rock the cradle till it again fell asleep." 

So great, often, becomes the affection of the elephant 
for his conductor or driver that he will defend him 
with his life. It is related that one of the soldiers of 
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, when fighting in the territory 
of Argos, fell wounded from his elephant, when the 
noble animal immediately rushed furiously among the 
combatants till he found his master, whom he then 
gently raised from the ground with his trunk, and, 
placing him on his tusks, carried him back to the town. 
And when kins: Porus, in a battle with Alexander the 



484 THE SIXTH DAY. 

Great, met with a similar misfortune, his faithful ele- 
phant is said to have kept the enemy at bay till he had 
replaced the monarch on his back with his trunk ; but 
the poor animal lost his life in this heroic defence of his 
master. 

In the high and cold latitudes of the north, owing 
both to the severity of the climate and to the character 
of the vegetation, neither the horse, nor the camel, nor 
the elephant could subsist ; yet the great Father of all 
has not left those branches of the human family that 
have pushed, or been pushed, into those inhospitable 
regions, unprovided with suitable help — to them He 
has given the Reindeer, an animal whose appetite and 
powers of digestion enable it to flourish even on the 
coarse and scanty lichens of Lapland and Spitzbergen, 
and which supplies to them the place of the horse, the 
cow, and the sheep. It is to them invaluable and in- 
dispensable. 

"The reindeer form their riches : these their tents, 
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth, 
Supply — their wholesome fare and cheerful cups : 
Obsequious to their call, the docile tribe 
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift 
O'er hill and dale." 

It was foreseen also that man in a thousand circum- 
stances would need another helper different from all 
those now described — an active, sagacious, faithful 
friend, to guard his home, to attend him in the chase, 
and to lighten the labors of tending his flocks and his 
herds — and this friendly assistant is supplied in the 



THE SIXTH DAY, 485 

trusty Dog. Every thing pertaining to this animal in- 
dicates that it was made for the service of man — his 
intelligence, his docility, his faithfulness, and his strong 
attachment to his master, preferring his society to that 
of his own species; and, unlike most other animals, re- 
membering only his caresses, is ready in a few moments 
to kiss the hand that smote him. The dog is a most 
valuable servant to man. How important the service 
he renders to the Esquimaux, to the Alpine traveller, 
to the shepherd, to the hunter, and to the herdsman ! 

The dog kind is a numerous family; more than 
twenty varieties are domesticated. Of all these the 
St. Bernard and the Scotch shepherd dog are the most 
remarkable for their intelligence and fidelity. The 
former, by their keen scent and wonderful sagacity, 
have discovered, and saved from death, many unfortu- 
nate travellers bewildered by snow-storms, or over- 
whelmed by avalanches, on the great Alps. Though 
the perishing man lie ten or twenty feet below the 
snow, such is the extreme delicacy of their sense of 
smell that they will discover the spot ; and then they 
will immediately begin to scratch away the snow, at 
the same time setting up a continued hoarse and solemn 
bark, to attract notice and assistance in the work of 
rescue. One of these noble creatures is said to have 
in this manner saved the lives of twenty-two persons, 
and perished at last himself in an attempt to save 
another. 

The shepherd dog displays equal sagacity and afFec- 



486 THE SIXTH DAY. 

tion. When trained, he perfectly understands the 
commands of his master, and with admirable intelli- 
gence united to the most unwearied industry and per- 
severance, will execute them. This faithful little 
creature has often been taught to bring along a flock of 
sheep after his master wherever he chose to go ; and 
even to drive them unaided and alone from one place 
to another. One such dog is of more help to the 
mountain shepherd than twenty men could possi- 
bly be. 

The affection of the dog for his master is very strong 
and remarkable, instances of which are recorded that 
cannot be read without emotion. Some have been 
known to take their station on the grave of their human 
friend, refusing food with the most steady resolution, 
till they pined to death. A dog of the Marquis Lan- 
gally, during his absence, became dejected and cheerless; 
and, on his sudden return, expired for joy. The lap- 
dog of Mary, Queen of Scots, followed her to the 
scaffold, and would not leave the body till forced away, 
and, two days afterward, died of a broken heart. 

In addition to the several evidences already noticed, 
that the foregoing animals were expressly created for 
the service of man, we may state this further proof, 
that to each of them has been given the form and dis- 
position and degree of sagacity that most happily fit it 
for its intended place and purpose. To illustrate this — 
of what value would the dog be, with all his other 
commendable qualities, if only his body had been like 



THE SIXTH DAY. 487 

that of the hog, or if his disposition had been that of 
the sheep ? So of the horse ; of what service had this 
noble animal been to man, notwithstanding the strength 
of his limbs, the symmetry of his form, and all his high 
sagacity, if only his temper had been that of the tiger ; 
or, with all his present intelligence, gentleness and do- 
cility, if only his body had been like that of a leopard ? 
Again : had sheep, though of finest fleece, been endowed 
with the ferocity of the hyena, who would want to sur- 
round himself with a flock of them; or, if covered with 
bristles instead of wool, where had been their peculiar 
value ? But, instead of anything of this kind, we see 
given to every domestic animal those qualifications that 
eminently fit it to render to man its specific service. 
And what still adds greatly to the proof of creative de- 
sign in this matter is, that domestic animals have been 
so constituted as to be susceptible of improvement under 
the judicious care and management of man. Accord- 
ingly, the sheep has been made to yield a finer fleece, 
the cow to give a more abundant supply of milk, the 
horse to become more fleet and powerful, and the dog 
more sagacious, under his protection and skill. And 
this last named quality seems to have been intended by 
the Creator in reward for kind care and judicious man- 
agement of these useful animals. 

EEFLECTIONS. 
In domestic animals we recognize a very marked 
token of the Paternal kindness of the Creator. Their 



488 THE SIXTH DAY. 

value and importance to man cannot well be estimated. 
How much do they add to his strength in toil, to his 
ease and speed in travelling, and to his sustenance and 
gratification in food. Had he not been provided with 
the sheep and the cow, how differently had both his 
table and his wardrobe been furnished. And had he 
not received for his helpers the ox, the dog, and the 
horse, he had never attained his present position in the 
world ; and were he to be deprived of them, he could 
not maintain that position for half a generation. How 
manifest, then, the Divine goodness in the creation 
and gift of our domestic attendants. 

Constituted for willing obedience, and bestowed in 
great kindness by the Creator, as these animals have 
been, yet how grossly are they often abused. While 
so ready to submit and to labor for our good, it is pain- 
ful to think of the cruel treatment they receive at the 
hands of many, being unfeelingly overworked — brutally 
beaten — half fed — urged by spur and whip to panting 
exhaustion — or set with savage delight to fight and 
tear one another. What vile abuse ! What shocking 
cruelty ! No language can sufficiently reprobate such 
inhumanity. Would that those guilty of it would stop 
and reflect that these submissive animals are not sense- 
less machines, not so many automata formed of wood 
and brass, but creatures endowed with sense and feel- 
ing like their own. Their sufferings are real like their 
own. They give forth every indication of this. They 
utter distinct cries of pain. They manifest terror, and 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 489 

often tremble, when menaced with a blow. They ex- 
hibit the same distortions of agony after the infliction 
of it. The bruise, the gash, the fracture, affect them 
similarly to ourselves. They sicken, suffer, grow 
feeble, and die, as we do. And their agonies are with- 
out the alleviation of fellow-sympathy while they 
writhe under them, or that of hope when they shall 
have been passed. They have to suffer in silence and 
alone. They cannot complain, they cannot tell the 
depth or intensity of their sufferings. And this very 
shroud of silence, how it aggravates tenfold the heart- 
less cruelty that inflicts those sufferings on a dumb 
animal. As not a sparrow, so assuredly not one of 
these, falleth without our Father. His tender mercy 
is over all His works. Their groans enter into His ear, 
nor will He forget them, when He cometh to render 
unto all according as their works have been. 

As we are to receive these domestic animals with 
gratitude, and to treat them with kindness, so also we 
are to regard them with reflection, for they are appointed 
to symbolize to us many important truths. If we view 
them simply as tools or useful helps, or even rest satis- 
fied with admiring their pleasing natural excellences, 
we shall overlook and miss a crowning benefit to be 
derived from them. As God's beneficent consideration 
for man's wants is nowhere more conspicuously seen 
than in this class of animals, so through no other class 
of emblems are the instructions of his gospel and the 
purposes of his grace more clearly set forth. 



490 THE SIXTH DAY. 

Even the Dog proffers to us a serious and profitable 
lesson. " Man," said the poet Burns, " is the god of 
the dog. He knows no other, he can understand no 
other. And see how he worships him. With what 
reverence he crouches at his feet, with what love he 
fawns upon him, with what dependence he looks up to 
him, and with what cheerful alacrity he obeys him ! 
His whole soul is wrapped up in his god; all the 
powers and faculties of his nature are devoted to his 
service, and these powers and faculties are ennobled by 
the intercourse. Divines tell us that it ought to be 
just so with the Christian ; but does not the dog often 
put the Christian to shame ? " 

The Ox, also, is to us a living parable. As he 
slowly wends his way from the field of toil, at noon or 
evening, toward home, how affecting the remonstrance 
his moving figure is made to utter — " The ox knoweth 
his owner, and the ass his masters crib; but Israel 
doth not know, my people do not consider." And 
when he bows his submissive neck to receive the yoke 
and go forth to his labor again, how gracious the invita- 
tion symbolized by the willing act — " Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly 
in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For 
my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 

The Sheep, likewise, is a sacred emblem. "Were 
this animal to repeat all the various truths committed 
by the Spirit to its symbolism, it would preach to us a 
new lesson with every change of situation in which w r e 



THE SIXTH DAY. 491 

beheld it — following after the shepherd — enclosed in 
the fold — scattered on the mountain — lying down in 
green pastures — straying among wolves — borne on the 
shepherd's shoulder — bound before the shearer — sepa- 
rating from the goats — in these various circumstances, 
sheep read to us the most solemn and important truths 
of the gospel of the Son of God. 

And the Lamb — this is the central symbol of the 
Christian system. This innocent and gentle creature 
is pre-eminently the type of Him who was holy, 
harmless, and undefiled, the Lamb of God that was 
slain to take away the sin of the world, in whose blood 
the redeemed of heaven have washed their robes and 
made them white. 

The Horse also is a chosen figure of inspiration. In 
the book of Revelation — that wonderful portion of the 
sacred volume — the King of kings, and Lord of lords, 
is represented as riding on a white horse; and the 
armies of heaven as following Him upon white horses, 
clothed in fine linen, white and clean, to witness His 
victory over all the enemies of truth and righteousness, 
and to participate in the final triumphs of His grace. 
Such is the deeply interesting event, such the glorious 
consummation, of which the horse stands forever a 
symbol and a remembrancer before his rider. 

How wise the arrangement that has thus embodied 
Divine Truth in living forms, that ever move before 
our view. How kind and gracious in God our Father 
thus to constitute " sheep and oxen " to be unto us as 



492 THE SIXTH DAY. 

priests and prophets, holding forth the word of life, 
and, though they see not the vision themselves, sym- 
bolizing the glorious things of Christ and of heaven, to 
inspire us with the comfort of the most blessed hope. 

BEASTS, or WILD ANIMALS. 

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind. 

The term heast in the history of this day, as has 
already been stated, is employed to designate wild 
animals, in contradistinction from the tame, included 
under the word cattle. Although these are not designed 
so immediately, or so eminently for the service of man 
as domestic animals, yet many, if not most of them, 
contribute in one way or another to his welfare — some 
as game for his sustenance, some by their hides and fur 
for his clothing, and all as subjects of interesting and 
profitable study. Following the usual order and 
classification, we notice first, those termed 

Quadrumana, or four-handed beasts. This order 
includes the orang-outang, chimpanzee, ape, baboon 
and monkey. These animals are naturally inhabitants 
of forests ; it is there they are at home, and find the 
food most suitable to their nature. Their inner toe, on 
both fore and hind feet, assumes the form and office of 
a thumb, opposed to the other toes and fingers ; so that 
they can use all four for grasping the branches, and 
springing from one to another, and are thus enabled to 
walk through the trees, or run up and down their 



THE SIXTH DAY. 493 

spreading tops, with as much ease and celerity as we 
can our staircases. 

The Orang-outang, an inhabitant of Borneo and 
Sumatra, is the most perfect of this order, and the one 
of all animals that most resembles man. In stature 
this animal, it is said, sometimes reaches nearly six 
feet ; it is broad-chested, muscular, and very powerful. 
Its visage is very like the human face, only the eyes 
are more deeply sunk, and the whole body is covered 
lightly with hair. Both their instinctive and imitative 
capacities are quite remarkable. BufFon, the naturalist, 
speaks of a tamed one that would sit at table, pour out 
his tea, put sugar and milk into it, wait for it to cool, 
and then drink it, as men did. All he did in this way, 
however, was simply imitative. 

The Chimpanzee, found in Congo and Guinea, also, 
it is stated, sometimes approaches the human stature. 
These live principally on the ground, and, as their 
name imports, spend much of their time in caves or 
under rocks. When molested, they will unitedly 
defend themselves with such fury and courage that 
even the elephant and the lion are obliged to retreat 
before them. The Monkey is found of various sizes, 
some are not larger than a small cat, some are vicious 
and savage, some are ill-formed and disgusting. What 
are called Ring-tailed monkeys live and move in great 
troops or armies. Many of the monkey family possess 
a high degree of instinctive sagacity. 

While quadrumana present the nearest approxima- 



494 THE SIXTH DAY. 

tion to the human form and stature, yet upon 
examination great and essential differences are found 
in their organization from that of man. "Any anato- 
mist," says Prof. Jeffries Wyman, " who will take the 
trouble to compare the skeleton even of the negro with 
that of the orang, cannot fail to be struck at sight 
with the wide gap which separates them." The 
volume of brain in man compared with that in the 
orang-outang is as five to one ; and the human brain 
contains parts which do not exist in the brain of any 
other animal species. Soemmering has enumerated as 
many as fifteen important anatomical differences be- 
tween the brain of man and that of the orang. 
These animals, by great care and protracted training, 
can be taught to do some things mechanically; but 
when we try our hand upon their mental powers for 
improvement, we find at once that we have got no 
foundation on which to build. The entire field of 
what we call knowledge lies absolutely beyond their 
reach. We may subject them to the best discipline of 
which they are capable during their whole lives, and 
yet we cannot get them possessed of a single idea, 
either literary or scientific. And as for conscience, 
they have none ; and by no process can we awaken or 
create moral sensibilities in their nature ; indeed, the 
idea of exhibiting moral truth to them is simply 
ridiculous. Conscience, or the moral sense, is found in 
man alone, and constitutes his highest distinction. 
Cheiropterans, or hand-winged animals. This order 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 495 

embraces bats, vampires, flying-cats, etc. The Bat is 
a singular animal, and seems to form a connecting link 
between birds and quadrupeds. One of its most extra- 
ordinary faculties is that of a knowledge of the presence, 
and apparently of the approach of objects, by some 
other sense or medium than that of vision. Blind bats 
fly among the trees as well as those that have eyes. 
Spallanzani found that those whose eyes he had put 
out avoided most expertly threads of fine silk, which 
he had so stretched as just to leave room for them to 
pass between. Whilst the bat of our own country is 
quite a diminutive creature, that of Madagascar is a 
monster, whose outstretched wings measure full four 
feet; and these assemble sometimes in such numbers 
as darken the air, and they devour every thing in 
their way. 

Predaceans, or preying animals. This order in- 
cludes the lion, bear, tiger, leopard, panther, hyena, 
jackal, wolf, fox, otter, marten, sable, ermine, etc. 

The Lion has long been styled " the king of beasts," 
and truly he is a royal animal. His form and mien 
are striking, his look confident and bold, his gait proud, 
and his roar terrible. It is sufficient but ! to see him in 
order to be assured of his superior strength. His large 
head surrounded with a dreadful mane, all those 
muscles that appear under the skin swelling with the 
slightest exertion, and the great breadth of his paws, 
with the thickness of his limbs, plainly evince that no 
other animal in the forest is capable of opposing him. 



496 THE SIXTH DAY. 

His face is broad, and is surrounded with long hair, 
which gives it a very majestic air. His huge eye- 
brows; his round and fiery eyeballs, which, upon the 
least irritation, seem to glow with peculiar lustre, 
together with the formidable appearance of his teeth, 
exhibit a picture of terrific animal grandeur which it is 
impossible to describe. The length of a large lion is 
between eight and nine feet, and his height about four 
and a half feet. His strength is prodigious ; with one 
stroke of his paw he can break the back or crush the 
skull of a horse. He meets with intrepidity his most 
formidable enemies ; and will boldly face man himself, 
and brave the force of all his arms. Wounds serve 
rather to provoke his rage than to repress his ardor. 
Nor is he daunted by the opposition of numbers; a 
single lion of the desert often attacks a whole caravan, 
and after an obstinate combat, when he finds himself 
overpowered, instead of flying, he continues to fight, 
retreating and facing the enemy till he dies. These 
powerful and terrible beasts are the terror of man in 
many regions ; but happily, says Buflbn, the species is 
not numerous, and it seems to be diminishing daily. 
This royal animal, though fierce and formidable to all 
others, is gentle and ever faithful to his chosen female 
companion. She lies in the same thicket or den, and 
partakes of the same prey with himself. Towards her 
and her cubs he exhibits parental and conjugal affec- 
tion, no less strong or striking than those manifested 
by the sweet singers of the grove. In this animal, 



THE SIXTH DAY. 497 

indeed, all the passions, even those of the most gentle 
kind, appear almost in excess, yet wonderfully modified 
and adapted to his appointed place and circumstances. 

The Tiger is somewhat smaller than the lion, but is 
decidedly more ferocious. The strength of the Eoyal 
Tiger is such, that he has been known to carry away a 
man in his mouth as a dog would a bone, and even to 
drag a buffalo whole to his den. Though fierce and 
cruel in the extreme, yet of all quadrupeds it has the 
most beautiful skin, both for gloss and colors. The 
frightful teeth and savage nature of this and of other 
wild beasts, at first view, shock all our best sensibilities, 
as they seem to reflect on the benevolence of the Crea- 
tor. But there is wisdom, and there is mercy even in 
this savageness and these powerful weapons of destruc- 
tion planted in their jaws, — it is to shorten the dying 
pangs of their victims, which otherwise might have 
been killed by protracted torture. 

The Leopard, in form, is like the tiger, only much 
smaller ; and like that animal is fierce and cruel, attack- 
ing almost every thing he meets. Nothing, however, 
can be more beautiful than the active and elegant man- 
ner in which leopards will sometimes sport among the 
branches of the trees. 

The Bear is another of the formidable beasts belong- 
ing to this class. Of this animal there are several 
varieties, inhabiting different parts of the earth, from 
the Indian islands to the Arctic regions. The Kamt- 

schatka bear is to the inhabitants almost what the rein- 
32 



498 THE SIXTH DA Y. 

deer is to the Laplanders; — of the skin they make 
clothes, bed-coverings, gloves, harness, and ice-shoes; 
the fat supplies them with oil for their winter lamps ; 
their flesh is to them for venison ; and the skin of the 
intestines for their window-glass. The polar bear, as 
its name implies, inhabits the highest and coldest lati- 
tudes. This is a very formidable creature, and some- 
times grows to the enormous length of ten or eleven 
feet. In the summer these live on ice islands, and are 
capable of swimming several leagues from one to an- 
other. They lodge in dens formed in large masses of 
ice. But, however desolate the habitation assigned 
them, or savage the aspect they present, even these 
animals exhibit traits of fidelity and affection which 
we cannot but admire. When the Carcasse Frigate 
was locked up in the northern ice, a she-bear, and her 
two cubs, nearly as large as herself, came toward it one 
day. The crew threw to them great lumps of sea- 
horse blubber. The old bear fetched these away singly, 
and divided them between the young ones, reserving 
but a small piece for herself. The sailors shot the 
cubs as she was conveying the last portion, and 
wounded her. She could just crawl with it to them, 
tore it in pieces, and laid it before them. When she 
saw that they did not eat, she laid her paws first on 
one, then on the other, and tried to raise them up, 
moaning pitifully all the time. She then moved from 
them, looked back, and moaned as if for them to follow 
her. Finding they did not, she returned, smelt them, 



TEE SIXTH DAY. 499 

and licked their wounds ; again she left them, and 
again returned ; and with signs of inexpressible fond- 
ness went round them, pawing and moaning. At last 
she raised her head toward the ship, and uttered a 
growl of despair, when a volley of musket balls killed 
her. Such is the strong and tender affection implanted 
by the Divine Hand, even in a lone and savage beast, 
and from which its scarce less savage destroyers might 
well have learned a profitable lesson. 

The Marten, Sable, Ermine, etc., are remarkable, 
and are chiefly valued, for their fine and much es- 
teemed fur ; that of the ermine being used by royalty 
to adorn its richest robes. 

Rodentes, or nibblers and gnawers. This order em- 
braces the hare, rabbit, beaver, porcupine, rat, mouse, 
marmot, guinea-pig, squirrel, etc. Most of these are 
so familiar as to need no description. The Rabbit is 
an animal found in nearly every part of the world, and 
is specially remarkable for its extraordinary fecundity ; 
a single pair, it has been calculated, would, if they had 
no enemies, in four years, produce a progeny of more 
than a million. 

The Hare among us is generally noticed only for its 
extreme timidity and watchfulness ; but it has a sister, 
or a little creature nearly related to it, called Plka, 
which is gifted by the Creator with a remarkable in- 
stinct. Of this interesting little animal, Kirby, in his 
Bridgewater Treatise, gives the following particulars. 
They inhabit the most northern districts of the Asiatic 



500 THE SIXTH DAY, 

continent, and always select for their abode the rudest 
and most retired spots, and often the centre of the most 
gloomy and humid forest, where the herbage is fresh 
and abundant. Here they employ themselves during 
summer in making hay for a winter store. This work 
is usually begun about the middle of August. With 
ready and unfailing skill they select their favorite 
herbs and grasses, and bringing them near their habita- 
tion, they spread them out to dry like hay. In Sep- 
tember, they form stacks of the fodder they have thus 
collected, under the rocks, or in other places, sheltered 
from the rain and snow. When many of them have 
labored together, their stacks are sometimes as high as 
a man, and seven or eight feet in diameter. All the 
grasses and herbs are cut when most vigorous, and 
dried so slowly as to form a green and succulent fodder. 
A subterranean gallery leads from the burrow below 
the mass of hay, so that neither frost nor snow can 
intercept their communication with it through the 
winter. Who but must acknowledge the guidance of 
an unseen Hand in all this ? Of these stacks collected 
and laid up with so much patient toil, the poor little 
creatures are often cruelly robbed by the wretched in- 
habitants, to feed their horses and cattle. Instead of 
imitating the foresight and industry of the provident 
Pika, they heartlessly rob it of its means of support, 
and so devote the animals that set them so good an 
example to famine and to death. 

The Hamster Bat, the Field Mouse, and other ani- 



THI2 SIXTH DAY. 501 

mals of this class, make a similar provision for winter, 
conveying in the season when food is to be found a 
suitable and sufficient quantity to their subterranean 
dwellings — a procedure in which man may discern a 
serious admonition to make due preparation for the 
evening of life and the winter of the grave. 

But of this order, and perhaps of all quadrupeds, the 
Beaver is the most remarkable for its instinctive doings. 
In length, the beaver is about three feet, and the tail, 
which is flat and of an oval shape, and covered with 
scales, about a foot more. It has five toes on all its 
feet, which in the hind pair are connected by a mem- 
brane, and thus aid in swimming ; whilst those on the 
fore legs are separate, and serve as hands to convey 
food to its mouth, to carry stones, to mix mortar, and 
build its structures. But the incisor teeth of these ani- 
mals are their principal instruments; with these they 
can cut down trees eight or ten inches in diameter; 
and when they undertake this operation, they gnaw it 
all round, cutting it sagaciously on one side higher than 
the other, and thus cause it to fall in the direction they 
wish. The beavers live in communities of some two 
or three hundred, and build their houses near together, 
each of which is occupied by a family of from two to a 
dozen members. They are creatures of strong and ten- 
der affection, and the utmost order and harmony pre- 
vail in the family, and in the community at large. 

The location selected by the beavers for their city is 
generally a pond encompassed by banks of soil, and of 



502 THE SIXTH DAY. 

a certain elevation. But if they cannot find such a 
site, they choose a flat piece of ground, with a stream 
running through it ; across this stream, in order to cre- 
ate a pond, they will construct a dam, which is at once 
a marvel of skill and industry. It is composed of 
stakes five or six feet high, firmly and closely implanted 
in the ground ; these are intertwined with twigs and 
roots, and all the interstices compactly filled up with 
stones and mud ; and thus with prodigious labor they 
build a substantial and impervious dyke, eight or ten 
feet thick at the bottom, and sometimes a hundred feet 
long. Where the current is weak, the dam is almost 
straight ; but where the flow is more rapid and power- 
ful, it is made to curve with the convex side opposed 
to the stream, thus presenting to it the strength and 
firmness of an arch. Their houses stand along the 
edge of the water, and are built of the same materials, 
and with equal skill. In their erection they J)egin to 
excavate some three or four feet under water, at the 
base of the bank, enlarging gradually upwards, so as to 
form a declivity till they reach the surface ; and of the 
earth which comes out of this cavity they form a hil- 
lock, mixing with it small pieces of wood, together with 
stones. They give this hillock the form of a dome, 
from four to seven feet high, and from eight to ten wide. 
As they proceed in heightening, they hollow it out 
below, so as to form the lodge which is to receive the 
family. At the anterior of this dwelling, they form a 
gentle declivity terminating in the water, so that they 



THE SIXTH DAY. 503 

enter and go out under water. This chamber is plas- 
tered with surprising neatness on the inside. Some- 
times the interior is divided by partitions into several 
rooms. At a little distance is the magazine for provi- 
sions, of which they generally have an abundant stock 
on hand. In short, the contrivances about the beavers' 
dwellings are calculated to fill us with admiration ; and, 
at first appearance, we might well imagine them the 
productions of intelligent beings. 

Edentes, or animals whose distinctive character is 
to have no fore teeth. This order contains the arma- 
dillo, ant-eaters, ornithorhynchus, sloth, pangolin, etc. 
In these we meet with striking exhibitions of the 
endless diversity of the Creator s works. 

The Ornitliorhynclius is a remarkable creature ; it is a 
quadruped, yet oviparous; it has the bill of a duck, 
and is almost web-footed; and the male, like the 
serpent, is armed with a sting, or poisoned spur, 
situated in its hind legs. Blumenbach termed it a 
jparadox. 

The Ant-eater, also, is a peculiar animal; it some- 
times measures six or seven feet in length and two 
feet in height. It is clothed in a suit of scale-armor. 
Its snout is one-fourth the length of its whole body ; 
its tongue is cylindrical, and often thirty inches long ; 
and this curious member, smeared with adhesive mucus, 
it thrusts among the busy ants, and draws them into 
its mouth by thousands ; and thence they are conveyed 
whole into what Prof. Owen has called the triturating 
gizzard of a fowl. 



504 THE SIXTH DAY. 

KuminANTS, or animals that chew the cud. This 
order embraces, beside the sheep, oxen and camel, 
already described, the deer, elk, antelope, llama, 
chamois, giraffe, buffalo, musk, ibex, etc. 

These animals are all herbivorous, and the rumi- 
nating process by which they are distinguished is truly 
wonderful. Their stomach is generally divided into 
four distinct cavities, or chambers ; the first of which 
serves as a receptacle for the grass or herbage, coarsely 
ground by the first mastication; into the second this 
mass enters gradually, and is there rolled up into small 
balls ; by a voluntary action these balls are brought up 
again, one after another, into the mouth, and undergo 
a second and more thorough process of mastication; 
after this it descends into the third stomach, and after 
undergoing the action of that, passes into the fourth, 
where it is subjected to the digestive process. The 
liquids drunk by the full-grown animal pass at once 
into the second stomach to moisten the balls; while 
the milk taken by the calf, which does not require to 
be either macerated or ruminated, is conveyed directly 
into the fourth stomach for digestion. Here, then, we 
behold a series of organs, mutually related and depen- 
dent, and performing a series of progressive operations, 
which exhibit design and adaptation as clearly as the 
mill which grinds our corn, or the machine that weaves 
our garments. 

Of Deer there is quite a variety, and they are the 
most elegant and airy, both in form and motion, of the 



THE SIXTH DAY. 505 

whole class, and seem intended as one of the principal 
living organs of the globe. The Gazelle and the 
Antelope are among the fleetest of quadrupeds, and 
exhibit the highest perfection of structure belonging to 
this type. The Chamois performs feats of agility that 
baffle all efforts at its capture, and overwhelm with 
astonishment its pursuers; it has often been seen to 
leap down a perpendicular precipice of twenty or thirty 
feet high, without sustaining the slightest injury.. 

The Giraffe is also a stately and beautiful animal. 
It is very tall, its head sometimes standing full eighteen 
feet from the ground ; stretching out its long neck and 
long tongue, it can browse far up the trees. These 
magnificent animals adorn the vast plains of the 
interior of Africa. 

The Bison or Buffalo is another notable ruminant, 
found both in the Old and in the New World. This 
animal, with its shaggy mane, and fierce and fiery eye, 
though belonging to the ox family, presents no slight 
analogy to the lion, the king of beasts. Over the great 
central plains of North America, the buffalo roam and 
migrate in vast, and sometimes almost innumerable 
herds ; and the Indian reckons them among his most 
valued game ; every part and parcel of those he takes 
serving him either as food, or clothing, or for the 
manufacture of his weapons and implements. 

Pachyderms, or thick-skinned animals. This order 
embraces the Elephant, already described, together 
with the Rhinoceros, the Tapir, and the Hippopotamus. 



506 THE SIXTH DAY. 

These are the giants of the earth. The Rhinoceros is 
scarce inferior in size to the elephant, but, unlike that 
animal, is wholly untractable. One species of this 
creature has two horns, one behind the other, on the 
snout; but those generally known have only one. 
This protects all the face, and is a most formidable 
weapon ; the tiger dreads it even more than the tusks 
of the elephant. Sometimes this horn is four feet in 
length, and six inches in diameter at the base. The 
skin of the rhinoceros is so thick and impenetrable 
that the fiercest and strongest animals can do it but 
little damage. 

The Hippopotamus likewise is a vast and unwieldy 
looking animal, but of inoffensive habits. Its enormous 
head and mouth, armed with 'tusks, give it a striking 
appearance. Its home is in the still and sedgy waters 
of Africa. By means of a beautiful contrivance this 
beast can remain for some time below water, and feed 
on the subaqueous herbage. Throughout the night, 
these unwieldy monsters may be heard snorting and 
blowing during their aquatic gambols, and not unfre- 
quently may be discovered sallying from their reed- 
grown coverts to graze by the serene light of the moon. 
Their hide is an inch and a half thick, and being 
scarcely flexible, may be dragged from the ribs in 
strips like the planks from a ship's side. This is 
supposed by some to be the animal called Behemoth in 
the Scripture. The Tapir acts the same part nearly 
in the New World that the hippopotamus does in 



THE SIXTH DAY. 507 

the Old. These animals, of giant bulk and irresistible 
strength, can make their way through thickest forests, 
and thus often open paths for man to traverse woods 
and jungles, that would otherwise mock his efforts to 
penetrate them. 

Marsupians, or animals that are provided with 
abdominal pouches, into which the young, at a very 
early stage of development, are received, and nourished 
with milk secreted from glands contained within these 
pouches. To this order belong the kangaroo, opossum, 
wombat, koula, etc. 

The Kangaroo is an animal of considerable size, 
measuring sometimes eight or nine feet from the nose 
to the tip of the tail, and weighing some one hundred 
and fifty pounds. Its fore quarters are quite slender, 
whilst its hind quarters are remarkably robust and 
incrassated; it sits erect, resting upon them like a 
hare; it has a powerful tail, which it uses as a fifth 
leg. Whilst the fore legs of a full grown kangaroo 
measure only some eighteen inches, the hind legs 
measure full forty inches. With this peculiar form, 
this animal will spring forward a distance of twenty or 
twenty -five feet at a single leap ; and though it cannot 
run fast, its springs are so rapid in succession, that, at 
times, it will distance the fleetest greyhound. 

The Opossum brings forth its young, and rears them 
in an abdominal sack, like the kangaroo. Opossums 
are peculiar to America, and are remarkable for having 
a greater number of teeth than any other animal, 



508 THE SIXTH DAY. 

amounting in all to fifty. Its tail is uncommonly 
long, and which it uses, not only for climbing and 
swinging from branch to branch, but also for a support 
to its young, which sit on its back, and twist their 
tails round their mother's, in order to prevent them 
from falling off. When disturbed or alarmed, it gives 
out an offensive odor. 

REFLECTIONS. 

It is stated in the Holy Scriptures concerning the 
various branches of the human family, that " God 
before appointed the bounds of their respective habita- 
tions;" this is equally true of the different tribes of 
animals. Wise design and kind adaptation stand forth 
conspicuously in the arrangement which has assigned 
to them their several localities. The hairless elephant, 
rhinoceros and tapir are obviously made for the heat 
and luxuriance of the Torrid Zone; and it is there 
they are found. The camel and the dromedary have 
been fashioned and constituted with specific adaptations 
for the parched and sandy deserts of the tropics ; and 
here, accordingly, they have been located. Advancing 
to the more temperate regions, we still find all crea- 
tures, both domestic and wild, admirably fitted to 
occupy the zone given to them for their inheritance. 
And as we proceed northward, we discover given to 
the various animals hardihood of constitution, together 
with warmth of covering, increasing with the increasing 
rigor of the climate, till we pass within the Arctic 



THE SIXTH DAY. 509 

circle, and reach the polar bears. Voyagers in those 
latitudes tell us that these animals disport in regions 
of ice, and revel in an intensity of cold, which, to man, 
with every contrivance of art for protection, is almost 
past endurance, and produces in him diseases which 
shortly terminate his existence, — that they sit for hours 
like statues upon icebergs, where, if we were to take 
up our position for one half hour, we should become 
statues indeed, and be frozen into the lasting rigidity 
of death, — that they slide in frolic down slopes of snow, 
which, if we were to touch with our bare hand, would 
instantly, like fire, destroy its vitality. Who that 
contemplates these shaggy creatures of the pole, so 
constituted as to find a congenial home amid eternal 
ice and snow, and to take their frolicsome pastime 
amid the bleak and dismal horrors of an arctic night, 
but must confess that every creature, by Divine ap- 
pointment and adaptation, is suited for its place, and 
that every place is fitted for its given occupants ? 

While this general adaptation of animals for their 
intended localities plainly indicates the kind providence 
of God, the destructive character and predaceous habits 
of many of them, at first blush, are far from corres- 
ponding to our ideas of the Divine benevolence. When 
we see the prowling wolf spring upon the playful lamb, 
and tear it in pieces; or the taloned vulture descend 
and bear away the mother hen from among her helpless 
brood; or the rapacious shark dive into a shoal of 
smaller fish and devour them by the hundred out of 



510 THE SIXTH DAY. 

the midst of their happy gambols — such scenes shock 
all our sensibilities as horrid cruelties, and, for a 
moment, we stagger in our attempts to reconcile them 
with the benevolence we have been taught to ascribe 
to the Creator. A little reflection, however, serves to 
present this subject in a milder and more favorable 
light. 

According to the existing order of creation, all ani- 
mals must die in one way or another ; for, were all to 
live on, and multiply as they do now, it would require 
but a short period before their progeny would exceed 
the capacity of nature to support them. Immortality 
for animals, therefore, upon the earth is out of the 
question. Consequently every living thing must die, 
either by acute disease, or by slow decay, or by 
violence. " The simple and natural life of brutes is 
not often visited by acute distempers ; nor could it be 
deemed an improvement of their lot if it were. Let it 
be considered, therefore, in what a condition of suffering 
and misery a brute animal is placed, which is left to 
perish by decay. In human sickness or infirmity, there 
is the assistance of man's rational fellow-creatures, if 
not to alleviate his pains, at least to minister to his 
necessities, and to supply the place of his own activity. 
A brute, in his wild and natural state, does every thing 
for himself. When his strength, therefore, or his speed, 
or his limbs, or his senses fail him, he is delivered 
over either to absolute famine, or to the protracted 
wretchedness of a life slowly wasted by scarcity of food. 



THE SIXTH DAY. 511 

Is it, then, to see the world filled with drooping, super- 
annuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, 
that we would alter the present system of pursuit 
and prey ? " * 

To the foregoing remarks we may add that, death to 
an animal by violence from another is attended by a 
far less amount of suffering, than we are apt to suppose; 
for, when it comes, it generally comes too suddenly to 
admit of much pain. Incapable of reflection, the lamb 
browses untroubled by a thought of death until it is 
actually upon him. And the hare, as Paley again 
observes, notwithstanding the number of its dangers 
and enemies, is as playful an animal as any other. 
And when actually under the paw, or within the jaws 
of the destroyer, its actual suffering may not be as 
great as we have been led to imagine. The account 
which Dr. Livingston gives of his sensations when the 
lion seized him by his arm, "and shook him as a 
terrier-dog does a rat," would lead us to the conclusion 
that appearances here may be deceptive. " The shock," 
he says, "produced a stupor similar to that which 
seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the 
cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there 
was no sense of pain, nor feeling of terror, though I 
was quite conscious of all that was happening. It 
was like what patients partly under the influence of 
chloroform describe, who see the operation, but feel not 

* Paley's Natural Theology. 



512 THE SIXTH DAY. 

the knife." He infers that the same complacency is 
common to animals when between the jaws of their 
enemies, and is an express and merciful provision of 
the Creator. In fact, though disease is often painful, 
the act of dying is not. Multitudes have testified to 
its ease with their last breath; both drowning and 
hanging are said to be attended even with pleasurable 
feelings ; and death by freezing with " sleepy comfort." 
And as man is more highly nerved, more acutely 
sensitive, than the lower animals, their sufferings must 
be less ; and, altogether, it may reasonably be inferred 
that the pangs which death inflicts upon them are not 
very great. Since, therefore, death in one form or 
another is unavoidable to all animals, if any one class 
of them is at greater disadvantage than another, it 
would appear to be that class which perishes slowly 
and from natural decay. 

REPTILES. 

And God made every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth 

after his hind. 

Under this designation are included the various 
orders of reptiles that inhabit the earth. While many 
of these from the earliest ages have been held in 
abhorrence, and studiously avoided as unclean and 
hateful creatures, yet careful and intelligent observa- 
tion has discovered in them many extraordinary 
qualities and interesting habits, adding much to the 



THE SIXTH DAY. 513 

accumulated evidences we have of the inexhaustible 
resources of the Divine Intelligence. 

Several species of reptiles are amphibious; these 
have cold blood, are oviparous, and have lungs of a 
very simple structure. Some of them are furnished 
with formidable teeth, and some have none. Some are 
fierce and predaceous, others are perfectly harmless. 
The bodies of all are cold to the touch, and this, 
together with the* sliminess of some and the squalid 
appearance of most of them, has made them in general 
objects of aversion. 

Saurians, or Lizards. This family comprises no less 
than four hundred and sixty species ; and among them 
the most notable is the Crocodile. This voracious and 
dreaded animal lives along the banks and in the waters 
of the great rivers of the Torrid Zone. In shape it 
resembles the common lizard, and walks, or rather 
crawls, on four short legs; its body tapering into a 
lengthy tail. It is encased in strong and close scales, 
as in a coat of mail, impervious even to a musket ball. 
It sometimes grows to the enormous size of twenty feet 
in length, and ^iyq feet in circumference, yet its eggs 
scarce exceed in size those of a swan, of which it lays 
from seventy to eighty ; but, by a merciful arrangement 
of Providence, most of these are destroyed. Its mouth 
is immense, and armed with a frightful array of sharp 
teeth. Its bellowing noise is equal to that of an ox. 
A great part of its time is spent in the water, and floats 
on its surface like a dead tree ; or else secretes itself in 

33 



514 THE SIXTH DAY. 

the tall reeds by the river side ; and when a steer, a 
tiger, or even the lion himself, comes to drink, it will 
sometimes spring upon him, and succeed in dragging 
him under water, and making him its prey. Its 
strength is prodigious ; with one stroke of its tail, it 
has been known to dash a strong boat into splinters ; 
yet these animals are capable of being tamed. Bruce 
mentions in his Travels, that in Abyssinia, children 
may be seen riding on their backs ; and it is a well 
known historical fact that, the priests in the temple of 
Memphis, in the celebration of their heathen mysteries, 
were in the habit of introducing tame crocodiles to the 
deluded multitude as objects of worship. They were 
fed from the hands of their conductors, and decorated 
with jewels and wreaths of flowers. 

The Oavial of India differs somewhat from the 
crocodile of Egypt, in the form and furniture of its 
mouth, while in length of body it exceeds it by many 
feet, and is a most formidable animal. 

Nearly allied to the foregoing is the Alligator, or 
American crocodile. It is much smaller, however, 
than either of them. This species formerly abounded 
in the south-western region of the United States, in 
nearly every stream and lake. "On the Red River, 
before it was navigated by steam vessels, they were so 
extremely abundant that, to see hundreds at a time 
along the shores, or on the immense rafts of floating or 
stranded timber, was quite a common occurrence, the 
smaller on the backs of the larger, groaning and utter- 



THE SIXTH DAY. 515 

ing their bellowing noise, like thousands of irritated 
bulls about to meet in fight ; but all so careless of man, 
that he might paddle by them unnoticed." 

To this class belong a multitude of smaller creatures, 
of the lizard type ; some of which are predatory, but 
by far the greater part are inoffensive, though their 
repulsive looks and cold surface make them shunned. 
Yet some species there are which are distinguished for 
the beauty of their colors, the splendor of their scales, 
eclipsing even the most brilliant plumage. 

Chelonians, or Tortoises. Of this family there are 
more than one hundred and twenty different species ; 
some inhabiting salt water, some fresh water, and some 
living entirely on the dry land. The body of the 
Tortoise is protected by two large horny plates, one 
above and the other below, and joined at the edges. 
This covering is of amazing strength. One of the large 
species has been known to bear a weight of seven 
hundred pounds without sustaining the least injury. 
From this shelly covering the animal cannot disengage 
itself; but within it he is safe from almost any enemy 
but man. Living wholly on vegetable food, it is a 
harmless creature, if left undisturbed. 

The vital energy of these animals is remarkable. 
Several have been known to live from eighty to one 
hundred and twenty years, and one is mentioned that 
survived upwards of two hundred years. As for killing 
them, it cannot easily be done. Goldsmith states that 
Redi, an Italian philosopher, took a land tortoise, made 



516 TEE SIXTH DAY. 

a large opening in his skull, and drew out all the brain, 
washed the cavity, so as not to leave the smallest part 
remaining, and then, leaving the hole open, set the 
animal at liberty. Notwithstanding this, the tortoise 
walked away without seeming to have received the 
smallest injury, only it shut the eyes, and never opened 
them afterwards. In a few days the aperture was 
overgrown with skin, and the animal lived on without 
brain for six months, walking about unconcernedly, 
and using its limbs as before. Not satisfied with this 
experiment, Kedi carried it further, and cut off the 
head, and the tortoise lived for twenty-three days after 
its separation from the body. The head also continued 
to rattle the jaws, like a pair of castanets, for above a 
quarter of an hour. 

This class of creatures have a peculiar arrangement 
for the circulation of their blood. Though they have 
lungs, the blood, instead of passing through them, as in 
warm-blooded animals, goes directly to the arteries, 
which send it through the frame. Hence they are 
able to live for a considerable time without breathing, 
and thus to remain under water without the slightest 
inconvenience. And in view of such facts, who but 
must devoutly admire the wisdom that has contrived 
such a variety of organized existences, and so marvel- 
lously adapted them to the peculiarities of their 
diversified habitations ? 

Ophidians, or Serpents. This tribe includes some 
three hundred species ; all of these cast off their skins 



THE SIXTH DAY. 517 

periodically, and in colder latitudes are torpid during 
winter. Their habits are thoroughly predacious, — 
insects, frogs, birds and beasts become their prey; 
and which they swallow whole, leaving neither skin, 
nor bone, nor scale of their victims upon the face of 
nature. The mechanism of the mouth of these ani- 
mals is so contrived, and the pieces that form it so put 
together, as to enable them to twist and distort and 
dilate it so enormously, that they can swallow animals 
bigger than their own bodies. 

The Boa Constrictor is a most formidable reptile, 
and has frequently been found thirty-five feet, and 
even forty feet long, and as thick as a man's body. 
This monster lurks in the dense recesses of tropical 
forests, where, when prompted by hunger, it preys on 
every animal that comes within its reach. Coiled 
round the boughs of trees, it has darted on the unwary 
traveller passing beneath, and after crushing him into 
a mummy in its terrible folds, gorged him at a 
mouthful. In the same way, and with equal facility, 
it has attacked and killed the strongest animals, and 
then swallowed them whole. These unconscionable 
repasts are followed by torpor, and the unwieldy 
animal, buried in some inaccessible lair, there digests 
its meal; and at length awakes again at the calls of 
hunger. Thus prompted it glides cautiously forth, and 
every beast of the forest that is able flies at its 
approach. The great Liboya is said to be the largest 
species now in existence, of which Legant saw one in 
Java that measured fifty feet long. 



518 THE SIXTH DAY. 

Though serpents possess neither feet, nor fins, nor 
wings, yet few animals are so nimble, or can transport 
themselves from place to place with equal grace and 
agility. Whether to seize their prey, or to escape 
from danger, many of them move with the rapidity of 
an arrow ; they emulate, and even surpass many birds 
in the ease and swiftness with which they gain the 
tops of the highest trees ; twisting and untwisting their 
flexible bodies around their trunks and branches with 
such celerity that the sharpest eye can scarcely follow 
their rapid motion. The black snake, it is said, will 
glide over the face of the earth almost as fast as a 
horse can gallop, and can also climb trees with the 
utmost agility. 

Serpents give many indications of superior instincts 
and sensations. They have always been an emblem 
of cunning; the Egyptians used the serpent in their 
hieroglyphics as a symbol of wisdom. They wait with 
amazing patience, and almost absolutely motionless, 
the favorable moment for seizing their prey. Towards 
assailants, they often manifest violent rage and fearless 
courage ; while, on the other hand, they are capable of 
being so tamed as to show strong signs of attachment 
to their masters. Some species are said to be suscepti- 
ble to the charms of music, and will crawl out of their 
hiding-places to listen to it. 

Their tenacity of life is remarkable. They can go 
for months together without food ; a viper can live a 
year without any nourishment ; and M. Audubon had 



THE SIXTH DAY, 519 

a rattle-snake in a cage, which for three years refused 
all food. They can bear to be frozen and thawed 
alternately without extinguishing life, or injuring any 
of the functional powers. They have been found with 
food in their stomachs frozen, and not digested; but 
when exposed to heat, they revived, and digestion 
commenced and continued till all the food disappeared, 
as if nothing had happened. 

Of all the serpentine family, some twenty-six species 
only are poisonous; of these the viper, the hooded 
snake, and the rattlesnake are the most deadly. The 
venomous fangs of these animals present the most 
striking exhibitions of mechanical contrivance in all 
animated nature. The purpose, of the Creator in 
calling* into existence animals so malignant, and 
endowing them with powers so deadly, is a question 
involved in much darkness and difficulty. On this 
recondite subject we can only say that, from the 
benevolence which pervades the general designs of 
creation we ought also to presume that, if we fully 
understood all the ends accomplished in the economy 
of nature by these venomous reptiles, we should see 
and acknowledge that God was as wise and good in 
their creation as in that of any other animated beings. 

Rattlesnakes are viviparous. When their young 
apprehend danger, they run, like the little chickens, 
to their best protector; and the method nature has 
provided for their safety is most singular, for the 
mother opens her mouth and swallows them alive, and 



520 THE SIXTH DAY. 

returns them again when danger is over. Of this fact 
M. de Beauvois says he was an eye-witness. 

Batrachians, or Frogs. Of these one hundred and 
seventy-five species have been enumerated. The form 
and habits of the frog are too familiar to need descrip- 
tion ; the history of its production, however, is full of 
interest. The germ of its existence is a diminutive 
egg floating in the water; this gradually becomes a 
living, moving globule, which, in due process of time, 
is transformed into a tadpole ; in the course of a few 
weeks this again puts forth four legs, and now wears 
the appearance of a lizard ; after a short period longer, 
the tail drops off, and, all the necessary changes of 
constitution being completed, the animal emerges from 
the water, and begins a new mode of existence, having 
become a perfect frog. Thus this despised little crea- 
ture passes through three separate modes of existence. 
How marvellous are the plans and processes pursued in 
the production of the humblest of Nature's works. 

Nearly related to the frog is the Toad. In form it 
is very much like the frog, and is equally harmless. 
That called Pipa, and found in Surinam, brings up its 
young something like the opossum. On the back of 
the female are certain cavities, like the cells of a bee. 
When she lays her eggs, the male gathers them 
together, about seventy-five in number, and places 
them carefully in these hiding-places, which then close 
over them; in about three months they are hatched, 
and come out in miniature, just like the parent. 



THE SIXTH DAY. 521 

Some persons entertain a special aversion to toads, 
and make a practice of ill-treating or killing them 
whenever they chance to cross their path, because, as 
they say, " They are so ugly." And frogs, by reason 
of their close resemblance, being mistaken for them, 
are frequently subjected to similar cruel treatment. 
Such conduct assuredly evinces a shocking disregard 
of the sacred rights of sentient creatures. So ugly! 
That God's creatures should seem ugly to us, when 
every thing in nature is good and admirable after its 
kind, is one of our own imperfections ; each toad, each 
crawling worm, each living atom, is the product of 
infinite and unerring skill; and instead of wickedly 
maiming or massacring what we are too ignorant to 
admire, and, perhaps, too indolent to study, it should 
be a lesson of humility to us that we cannot see with 
more discerning minds. Even the toad has his excel- 
lences ; to name no more, his eye is a living gem of 
beauty. To condemn and hate the form in which 
these little animals, or any others, have been made, is 
nothing less than to reproach their Maker; and to 
lacerate and destroy them simply because they are not 
conformable to our notions of beauty, is no other than 
vicious cruelty. Go on, poor toad ! go on thy way, 
there is room enough in the world both for me and 
for thee. 

Vermes, or Worms. This is a very numerous family, 
and embraces over eight hundred species. These pre- 
sent us with almost every imaginable form, organiza- 



522 THE SIXTH DAY. 

tion, and habit. Some are naked, and some are 
encased ; some have heads and eyes and antennae, and 
some have none of these; some are formed with 
mouths, and some are furnished with probosces ; some 
live in the water, and some in the soil ; yet the struc- 
ture and senses of every species, as far as studied, 
appear marvellously adapted to its particular place and 
mode of existence. 

The common Earthworm, though despised and often 
trampled upon by the ignorant and thoughtless, is 
found by the man of science a subject full of interesting 
wonders. Its blood circulates without the intervention 
of a heart, and its nervous system exhibits features 
peculiar to itself. Along its back is a row of one 
hundred and twenty apertures, opening between the 
segments of the body, for the purpose of respiration. 
If this worm be cut in two, each part in a short time 
will become a perfect and complete worm, like the 
original. And if each of these be divided again in 
like manner, the same result will follow. The little 
worm called Nais has been divided into twenty-six 
parts, and nearly all of them produced the head and 
tail, and became so many distinct individuals. Add to 
all this, the earthworms serve very important ends in 
the economy of nature, although their labors are 
generally overlooked. They are nature's ploughmen. 
They bore the stubborn soil in every direction, and 
render it pervious to the air, to the rain, and to the 
fibres of plants and grasses. Without these auxiliaries, 



THE SIXTH DAY. 523 

the farmer would find his land cold, hard-bound, and 
unproductive. The green mantle of vegetation which 
covers the earth is dependent in no small degree upon 
the worms which burrow among its roots, and enrich 
them with their refuse, and finally with their own 
bodies. 

Another class of worms possessing great interest, 
and that have enlisted much study, are those called 
Entozoa, or parasites. These inhabit the bodies of 
living animals, including man himself. Many hundred 
species of them have been detected and described. "It 
is a notorious fact," says Watson, in his Medical Lec- 
tures, "that numerous parasites do crawl over our 
surface, burrow beneath our skin, nestle in our entrails, 
and riot and propagate their kind in every corner of 
our frame. Nearly a score of animals belonging to the 
interior of the human body have been already dis- 
covered and described; and there is scarcely a tissue 
or an organ but is occasionally profaned by their 
inroads." They have been found, not only in the 
intestines, but in the muscles, in the liver, in the 
kidneys, floating in the blood, buried in the substance 
of the heart and brain, and even within the ball of the 
eye. These, assuredly, are facts sufficient to humble 
the foolish pride of man. How true, how literally 
correct, -the words of afflicted Job, " I have said to 
corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, 
Thou art my mother and my sister: my flesh is 
clothed with worms and clods of the dust." 



524 THE SIXTH DAY. 

REFLECTIONS. 

In the forty-first chapter of Job, the Crocodile, under 
the name Leviathan, is pointed out and described as a 
specimen of the Creator's power and authority, and as 
serving to abate the pride and humble the haughtiness 
of mortals. And when, in comparison with man, we 
consider this reptile's vast dimensions, its enormous 
voracity and strength, its fleetness in swimming, its 
daring impetuosity, its frightful mouth and impenetra- 
ble scales, it is well calculated to inspire terror and to 
humble man, while it displays and magnifies the 
power of Him who created it. Yet geologists, as 
noticed in the early part of the work, tell us, and their 
statements are confirmed by visible proof, that even 
the crocodile and the gavial are but pigmies compared 
with the race of Saurians that occupied the surface of 
our globe far back in the pre-Adamite periods of its 
history, when, says Hugh Miller, " there were lizards 
bulkier than elephants; reptilian whales furnished 
with necks slim and long as the bodies of great snakes; 
flying dragons, whose spread of wing greatly more 
than doubled that of the largest bird." While we 
stand in awe as we contemplate such appalling mon- 
sters, we cannot but feel a glow of thankfulness that 
their number, range, and magnitude have now been 
reduced to a point consistent with human safety. 

The serpent race stands in interesting but painful 
association with the history and destiny of man, as the 



THE SIXTH DAY 525 

instrument of his fall in Eden. Sin, the Scripture 
informs us, had entered the universe before the crea- 
tion of man. A great number of the exalted spiritual 
beings that surrounded the eternal throne, at some 
dateless period, had revolted and swerved from their 
allegiance to Jehovah, under the guidance of one 
particular leader, called Satan. And this fallen arch- 
angel, now wicked and depraved, not content with the 
ruin of himself and associates, desired and sought the 
ruin of the newly-created man likewise. And for the 
more successful accomplishment of his malicious design, 
he employed the agency of a serpent. To us, at this 
day, this creature, a loathsome reptile, may appear a 
most unsuitable instrument for this purpose. But we 
must remember that the Scripture teaches us that the 
serpent is not now what it then was. It is now in a 
form and in a state of degradation. This is a point of 
interest. The Hebrew name given to the serpent in 
this place is nahash, a term signifying discernment, 
sagacity. The original name, therefore, of this creature, 
plainly indicates one of more than ordinary intellect, 
and not a stupid reptile. And the sacred narrative 
expressly states, that the creature here intended stood 
at the head of the animal creation, and was the most 
subtle or sagacious of all the beasts which the Lord 
God had made. We have, therefore, grounds to believe 
that this animal was not of its present serpentine char- 
acter before the fall of man. But immediately after 
that sad event, and in consequence of its instrumental 



526 THE SIXTH BAY. 

connection with it, and for a memento to man of his 
own fall and depravation, it was transformed and 
degraded into such a reptile as we now behold it. In 
the beginning, it stood chief among the brute creation, 
but from the day of man's fall it became a vile and 
creeping thing. " Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and 
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Accord- 
ingly, we find that it was a common belief among the 
ancient Jews and the early Christians that the serpent, 
before the fall, was not only gentle and innocuous, 
but in form and appearance among the most beautiful 
of creatures. The serpent, therefore, being thus at the 
head of the animal creation, and making the nearest 
approach to man in intelligence, was the most suitable 
to be made the vehicle of the designs and assault of 
Satan. We have no evidence, indeed, that this crea- 
ture ever possessed the faculty of speech; but as 
Balaam's ass, under the influence of superior power, 
was enabled to speak with human voice, so it may be 
that the serpent was for the time gifted with vocal 
power, under the influence of this fallen archangel. 
Or, whatever else the true explanation of this may be, 
the fact that words proceeded out of the mouth of the 
nahash is certain, for God hath said it. The words 
and reasoning addressed to Eve, however, were in 
reality the words and reasoning of Satan, who had 
entered the serpent, that is, they were the produce of 
Satan's intellect. In the crawling serpent, then, we 
have a perpetual remembrancer, even to the end of 



THE SIXTH DAY. 527 

time, that we are the fallen offspring of a fallen 
parent. 

No creature of God has been made in vain. All His 
works, from the highest to the lowest, have been 
formed in wisdom, and for worthy ends. The fore- 
going class of animated nature, however, have been 
shunned and hated, rather than studied and admired 
by the generality of mankind. But the hasty glance 
we have now taken plainly shows, that crawling 
reptiles bear the impress of the Divine Hand, and that 
His goodness extendeth even to these. Even the 
worm has his place to fill, and his part to perform, in 
the great system, and is neither forgotten nor over- 
looked by the Great Father of all. " I wi^h to impress 
upon your minds," said Dr. Mason Good to his students, 
" by the incontrovertible facts of living examples, that 
nothing is low, nothing is little, nothing in itself 
unworthy, in the view of the Creator and common 
Parent of the universe ; that nothing lies beyond the 
reach of His benevolence, or the shadow of His pro- 
tection. God alike supplies the wants, and ministers 
to the enjoyment of every living creature; He alike 
finds them food in rocks and in wildernesses, in the 
bowels of the earth, and in the depths of the ocean. 
His is the wisdom that to different kinds, and in 
different ways, has adapted different habits and modes 
of being; and has powerfully endowed with instinct 
where He has strikingly restrained in intelligence. It 
is He that has given cunning where cunning is found 



528 THE SIXTH DAY. 

necessary, and wariness where caution is demanded; 
that has furnished with rapidity of foot, or fin, or wing, 
where such qualities appear expedient; and where 
might is of moment, has afforded proofs of a might the 
most terrible and irresistible." His mercy is over all 
His worhs ; and all His worTcs praise Him. 



II. 



§fa j&felh fag. 



Man is made in the likeness and image of God. 



II. 

THE SIXTH DAY. 

Genesis 1 : 26-31. — And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness ; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and 
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God crea- 
ted man in his own image, in the image of God created He him ; male 
and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said 
unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sub- 
due it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of 
the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And 
God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is 
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a 
tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of 
the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for 
meat : and it was so. And God saw every thing that He had made, and, 
behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the 
sixth day. 

MAN. 

AY by day, and from stage to stage, we have 
) traced the progressive work of creation, till we 
are now arrived near its close. All that we 
have thus far surveyed, however, has been but 
preparatory work — but the fitting up of a mansion for 
an expected occupant — but the erecting of a temple for 
a coming worshipper. And now at length that the 
mansion is finished, the temple with all its furniture 
completed, the long-looked-for occupant and worshipper 
only remains to be created.. 

.531 




532 TEE S1XTE DA Y. 

It will be observed, that in opening the account of 
man's creation, the sacred history assumes a different 
and loftier phraseology, and becomes invested with 
peculiar solemnity ; thus conveying a plain intimation 
of his pre-eminent distinction above all that went be- 
fore. The creative fiat now takes a marked change. 
Hitherto it had been said, Let there be light, Let the 
waters be gathered, Let the earth bring forth, etc. ; but 
it is not said, Let there be man. The Creator himself 
is now described as coming forth from his hiding-place. 
To denote the superior nature and high destiny of the 
being about to be formed, the Elohim is represented as 
proceeding to the work with measured deliberation, and 
as the result of self-consultation. And God said, Let 
us make man in our image, after our likeness. And to 
indicate the direct and peculiar derivation of the crea- 
ture man, he is described as formed by the immediate 
hand of God, and animated by his breath. And the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
hreathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man be- 
came a living soul. 

The language used in this place is peculiar, and 
worthy of note. " Let us make man, in our image, 
after our likeness." The original for " God " is Elohim, 
a plural noun, yet used with the verb " created " in the 
singular. "And what is remarkable, throughout the 
Bible," says Cummings, "Elohim, plural Hebrew, is 
used with a singular verb " — a fact which Jewish Rab- 
bies, as well as many Christian Divines, regard as indi- 



THE SIXTH DAY. 533 

eating the great truth of Three Persons in One God- 
head. Thus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 
are represented as united both in the creation and in 
the redemption of man. 

" Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." 
This image and likeness consisted not in figure and 
lineaments of body, for God is a Spirit, and no material 
form can bear any similitude to Him. This image lay 
in the soul, and consisted in its capacities to resemble 
God in his moral attributes — in a mind capable of true 
knowledge, a conscience to distinguish between right 
and wrong, affections to delight in holiness, and a heart 
to love God with all its powers. In love was this im- 
age perfected, for God is Love. 

"And let them have dominion" This power or 
dominion was given to man on the ground of his pre- 
eminence, or because he intellectually and morally bore 
the image of God. In virtue of this delegated author- 
ity or dominion, it is probable that Adam's control over 
the animal creation was much more complete before 
the fall, than it has been since among his descendants. 
Prof. Bush, in his notes, supposes that " in consequence 
of Adam's transgression, this lordship was in a great 
measure forfeited, and his rebellion against God pun- 
ished by the rebellion of the creatures against himself." 

" Male and female created He them." This expression 
is anticipatory of the next chapter, and simply signifies 
that the race of man was to be constituted male and 
female. 



534 THE SIXTH DAY. 

66 And God blessed them/' — that is, gave them power 
to propagate and multiply upon the face of the earth. 
In virtue of this blessing of fecundity, the earth has 
been replenished with inhabitants through all the ages. 
" Of this one blood God hath made all nations of men 
to dwell upon the face of the whole earth." Its present 
population is estimated at 1,200,000,000. And it has 
been computed that the total number of human beings 
that have existed upon our globe since the creation 
amounts to no less than 36,627,843,275,000,000. Ex- 
actness, of course, in such a calculation, is not to be 
obtained or expected, and the above figures can be 
regarded only as an approximation to the truth. Still, 
they serve as a striking illustration of the propagating 
blessing bestowed upon man at his creation. 

" Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed," 
— that is, all the cereal plants, such as wheat, corn, rye, 
etc., whose peculiar distinction and characteristic it is 
to produce seed ; " and every tree in the which is the 
fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat." 
In these words, God assigns, and points out to the 
newly-created man, the food most suitable for him. It 
was plainly intended that he should subsist on vegeta- 
ble food — herbs, grains, and fruits. These only were 
allowed to and used by man in his first estate. This 
abstinence from animal food is preserved in the tradi- 
tions of all nations, as one of the characteristics of their 
golden age, or the age of innocence. 

"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl 



THE SIXTH DAY. 535 

of the air, and to every creeping thing that creepeth 
upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given 
every green herb for meat," — that is, all grasses and 
succulent plants, whose nutritious qualities reside 
chiefly in the stems and foliage. Through all the 
generations and varieties of animals, from the ponder- 
ous elephant to the invisible mite, no living thing can 
subsist without food. And we see the goodness of 
God, in making suitable and ample provision to meet 
the wants of all, ere He formed and called them into 
existence. And unto this day, it is strictly true, 
" These all wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give 
them their meat in due season. That Thou givest 
them they gather ; Thou openest Thine hand, and they 
are filled with good." 

"And God saw every thing that He had made, and, 
behold, it was very good." This is the Divine testi- 
mony respecting the works of creation, when all was 
finished. All was good, supremely good, and only 
good. Whatever of evil or disorder there may be now 
in the world, these formed no part of the original plan 
and work of God, but have been introduced in conse- 
quence of man's transgression. 



536 THE SIXTH DAY. 

■ 

MAN. 

In the image of God created He him. 

HIS BODILY FRAME 

Man is the crowning work of creation, both as to his 
bodily organization and mental endowments. Physi- 
ologists have pointed out numerous particulars in which 
man differs from, and surpasses, the highest and most 
perfect of all terrestrial animals. The first and most 
obvious of these distinctions is his erect posture. Man 
is made to walk uprightly, and " he presents the only 
instance among Mammalia of a conformation by which 
the erect posture can be permanently maintained, and 
in which the office of supporting the trunk of the body 
is confined exclusively to the lower extremities." This 
is the natural position for him, and the best suited to 
his organization and habits. He could not, even if he 
wished, go for any length of time on all-fours; for in 
that position, the action of the heart, and consequently 
the whole circulation of the blood, would become 
deranged; the head, sustained as it is by a small 
and slender muscle, would drop; the eyes would 
become fixed on the ground, and of little use; and 
the movements of the whole frame would become slow 
and difficult, and ludicrously grotesque. On the other 
hand, in his vertical attitude, man presents a sym- 
metrical and commanding form ; his movements all are 
easy and natural ; the head sits lightly and gracefully 



THE SIXTH DAY. 537 

upon the shoulders, the expressive features of the 
countenance are displayed, the eyes have a wide and 
uninterrupted sphere of vision, and, altogether, he 
displays a beauty of figure, and nobleness of aspect, 
that stamp him as the lord and master of this lower 
creation. Well, therefore, might Cicero have ex- 
claimed, " How many excellences has God bestowed on 
mankind ! He has raised them from the ground, and 
made them lofty and erect, that, with an eye directed 
to heaven, they might aspire to the knowledge of the 
Divine character." 

Throughout the domain of animated nature, not a 
living thing can be found that comes near the creature 
man in external symmetry or beauty of features. 
Nothing, merely animal, resembles the varied expres- 
sion of the human eye ; nothing approaches the charm 
of the human smile ; nothing can be compared to the 
expressive features of his intellectual countenance. 

Another point of high superiority in the human 
frame over all other beings is his Skin. The com- 
plexion, the delicacy, and the softness of this are 
without a parallel in the animal kingdom. But apart 
from all that delights the eye, the taste, and the touch, 
the skin, through its exquisite nervous sensibility, is a 
medium of great and important mental advantages. 
To it we owe a large portion of our sensations and 
ideas. It constitutes a channel of ceaseless communi- 
cation between the indwelling mind and material things 
without. A fine nervous expansion, proceeding from 



538 THE SIXTH DAY. 

the brain, is most admirably spread over the outside of 
our bodies, immediately under the cuticle, which is 
ever alive to every external impression, whether of 
pleasure or of pain; and these impressions are often 
closely connected w r ith our moral feelings, and with our 
best sympathies. " No small portion of the tenderness 
of our nature, and of our compassionate benevolences," 
says Sharon Turner, " are related to the skin. With 
the hide of a rhinoceros, or the wool of a sheep, or the 
shaggy coat of a bear, we should not possess the 
feelings of a human heart, nor the intellectual sensi- 
bility of a cultivated mind. A comparative stupidity, 
hardness of nature, insensibility, roughness, cruelty, or 
savage humor, would characterize us in such a trans- 
formation, as corresponding qualities accompany other 
creatures, according as their outside habilament differs 
from our beautiful exterior." 

The chief and distinguishing superiority in the 
human frame is the Hand. The hand belongs to man 
exclusively. The same system, essentially, of bones 
and muscles that constitute his arm and hand belongs, 
indeed, to the higher division of the animal kingdom — 
Animalia vertebrata — which includes the whole chain 
of beings from man to fishes. But in these, those 
bones and muscles are modified and developed to suit 
the nature and circumstances of each particular race ; 
in the fish, they are fashioned and adjusted to form a 
fin ; in the bird, a wing ; in the lion, a paw ; in the 
horse, a compact foot encased in a hoof. Admirable, 



THE SIXTH DAY. 539 

indeed, are all these in their adaptations to the wants 
of their several owners ; but had this system of parts, 
this limb, attained no better or more perfect form than 
either of these in man, where had been his present 
elevation? where his arts, his science, his supremacy? 
In that case, as Galen, centuries ago, observed, "he 
would no longer work as an artificer, nor protect 
himself with a breastplate, nor fashion a sword or 
spear, nor invent a bridle to mount the horse and hunt 
the lion. Neither could he follow the arts of peace, 
construct the pipe and lyre, build houses, erect altars, 
inscribe laws, and through letters hold communion 
with the wisdom of antiquity." The armed fore- 
extremities of a variety of animals give them great 
advantages; but these advantages all, and far more, 
are secured to man in a Hand, with reason to use it. 
" The human hand is so beautifully formed," says Sir 
Charles Bell, " it has so fine a sensibility, that sensi- 
bility governs its motions so correctly, every effort of 
the will is answered so instantly, as if the hand itself 
were the seat of that will ; its actions are so powerful, 
so free, and yet so delicate, that it. seems to possess a 
quality instinct in itself, and there is no thought of its 
complexity as an instrument, or of the relations which 
make it subservient to the mind; we use it as we 
draw our breath, unconsciously; its very perfection 
makes us insensible to its use." The arm and hand, 
considered in their mechanism alone, are structures of 
unrivaled excellence; and, when viewed in relation 



540 THE SIXTH DAY. 

to the intellectual energies, to which they are subservi- 
ent, plainly reveal to us the Divine Source, from which 
have emanated this exquisite workmanship and these 
admirable adjustments, so fitted to excite in our breast 
the deepest veneration, and to fill us with never-ceasing 
wonder and gratitude. 

Man stands at the summit of the animal pyramid. 
He not only combines in himself the excellences of all 
the higher order of animal organizations, but those ex- 
cellences in a far higher degree. Man seems to have 
been the archetype set before the Creator's mind from 
the dawn of vertebrated existences, and toward which 
He thought fit to work upward through the vast pre- 
Adamite periods, producing in tribe after tribe a higher 
and still higher degree of symmetry and perfection, till 
man, the master-piece, was brought forth. " From the 
past history of our globe," says Prof. Owen, " we learn 
that Nature has advanced with slow and stately steps, 
guided by the archetypal light amid the wreck of 
worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea, 
under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became ar- 
ranged in the glorious garb of the human form." 

In the 139th Psalm, the formation of the human 
body is described under the metaphor of a piece of 
beautiful embroidery — " When I was formed in secret ; 
when I was wrought as with a needle in the lowest 
parts of the earth."* The figure is equally elegant 
and expressive. The frame upon which this living 
Lowth's Translation. 



THE SIXTH DAY. 541 

embroidery is wrought, is made up of no less than two 
hundred and forty-five bones of various forms and sizes; 
each of which is carved, and turned, and grooved with 
exquisite skill to fit its place, and perform its functions; 
whilst all are jointed, and hinged, and bound together 
into one complete and marvellous skeleton. To these 
bones, and to other parts of the system, are attached, 
for the purpose of motion, over five hundred muscles, 
some large and strong, some diminutive and of the ut- 
most delicacy, some obeying the mandates of the will, 
and some acting spontaneously. These muscles are 
often so closely contiguous to one another that they are 
found in layers, as it were, over one another, crossing 
one another, sometimes imbedded in one another, some- 
times perforating one another; yet all so perfectly ar- 
ranged that they never obstruct one another, or in any- 
wise interfere. Within the frame-work, and protected 
on every side, are planted the essential organs of life — 
the Brain, the Heart, and the Lungs — all in unceasing 
action from the beginning of life to its close. Enclosed 
within the system are also those of digestion, and nutri- 
tion ; the stomach with its gastric chemistry, and the 
bowels with their myriads of lacteals collecting nutri- 
ment. Through the whole body runs a perfect network 
of veins, arteries, and nerves, each dividing into count- 
less ramifications, penetrating every part, and diffusing 
life and sensibility throughout the entire frame. Over 
many of the internal parts and delicate organs are 
woven membranous veils, or vital tracery, too marvel- 



542 THE SIXTH DAY. 

lous for description ; while externally the whole is 
mantled from head to foot with a threefold skin, per- 
forated with its millions on millions of pores for the 
purpose of perspiration. 

So finely articulated are the various members, and 
so close the connection, and so perfect the harmony, of 
the muscular and nervous systems that, every joint is 
instantly ready for any movement or action that the 
mind may require. Of all this we have notable exam- 
ples in the act of writing, and in that of executing a 
piece of music on the piano ; in either of these perform- 
ances, how numerous the muscles brought into play, 
and yet how happily measured, how definite and per- 
fect and rapid their action! But if the voluntary 
operations of man excite wonder, those that are 
involuntary, and carried on without conscious effort 
or care on his part, ought, assuredly, to awaken his 
profoundest gratitude and devotion, especially when he 
remembers that these are indispensable to his life. 
The heart ceaselessly expands and contracts, the lungs 
play, the stomach digests, the glands secrete; and all 
this surprising mechanism and chemistry proceed with 
such quietness, and are so self-sustained, that neither 
does sleep stop them, nor is our repose disturbed by 
them. If these vital operations had been dependent on 
the superintendence of the mind, man's attention could 
not have been diverted from them for a minute; all 
his care must have been concentrated on the working 
of his bodily organs, and all his care would still have 



THE SIXTH DAY. 543 

been insufficient ; for a doubt, a moment's hesitation, a 
forgetfulness of a single action at its appointed time, 
would have terminated his existence. His life in such 
a case would have been most precarious, and most 
unhappy, — every breath would have been drawn with 
fear, and every pulsation would have been attended 
with painful anxiety. Here, then, we behold the 
wisdom and goodness of God in thus Himself holding 
our souls in life. 

" What a miracle of creation is man ! How fearfully 
and wonderfully made — a monument reared by Infinite 
Wisdom — a prodigy of parts ! Could the unrivalled 
mechanism of man be unveiled, or its thousand move- 
ments be seen through a transparent medium, what a 
scene for contemplation, wonder, and astonishment; 
and what a medium for adoration of the Great and 
Eternal Creator, who made and adjusted the mechanism, 
and put all its parts and powers in motion ! 

" What a vision it would be to see the ganglia 
shooting their electric influences along the lines of the 
nerves — the pneumatic machinery of the lungs dis- 
charging the envenomed air, and receiving in exchange 
a supply of a pure medium ! The pause and interval 
in respiration, to divide the gases agreeably to their 
relative specific gravities. The hydraulic engine of 
the heart propelling the vital fluid of the blood ; its 
contractions and dilatations ; the flapping of the mitral, 
semilunar and tricuspid valves, acting like the valves 
of a steam engine \ the vibrations of the muscles ; the 



544 THE SIXTH DAY. 

pulling of the cordage of the tendons ; the synovial or 
lubricating secretions of the joints, and their balls, and 
their sockets ; the chronometry of the pulse, and the 
calorimeter which measures out heat to the system, 
and apportions its quantity according to circumstances, 
— a principle of compensation to equalize the temper- 
ature, and preserve an equilibrium under all changes 
and every variability. The absorbing vessels sucking 
up the several assimilated materials with a skilful 
selection, and with rare discrimination appropriating 
all ; the functions of the skin cooling the surface when 
required, and the orifices acting as the waste pipes also 
of the system. The optical wonders of that perfect 
achromatic instrument, the eye; its window, and its 
curious curtain, and its lens, and the media in contact 
with it ; its reticular canvass in the back-ground of a 
camera obscura, with all its microscopic and telescopic 
furniture. The acoustic paraphernalia of the ear, with 
its hammer, its stirrup, and its drum, and its chambers, 
and its beautifully convoluted recesses. The move- 
ments of the brain and its membranes — the secreting 
and assimilating organs engaged in recruiting the 
waste, and rearing the goodly structure ; the sensitive, 
irritable, and jealous epiglottis, guarding, like a faithful 
sentinel, the viaduct of the trachea; the refined sensi- 
bility of the papillse and fibrillae of the tongue, and the 
delicate functions of the sneiderian membrane. These, 
and myriads more of secreting and assimilating organs, 
with the secretions of the kidneys, mammae, gall- 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 545 

bladder, salivary glands ; pancreas, conglobated glands 
and lacteals, may well demand our wonder and admira- 
tion. What a miracle of skill and complication, and 
yet how calm and unobtrusive their harmony ! All 
that is beautiful in design, and wonderful in the 
adaptation of parts, with their mutual aptitudes, are 
here concentrated in one luminous focus of Almighty 
Wisdom." — Murray s Truth of Revelation Demonstrated, 
p. 32. 

Another fact that heightens unspeakably our admira- 
tion of the human body is the method in which it is 
kept in repair. While all the above complicated 
machinery is in full operation, its every member, every 
organ, every vessel, every fibre, is removed and replaced 
by another and a new one, without occasioning one 
moment's interruption of its movements. This is 
effected through the processes of nutrition and assimi- 
lation. Old and worn-out particles of the system are 
being continually carried away by perspiration, respira- 
tion, etc. ; and these are constantly replaced by new 
particles derived from the food we eat and the air we 
inhale. Thus the whole fabric is dissipated probably 
in the course of a few months, certainly in a very few 
years; so that our present frames are no more identical 
with the frames of our early youth, than they are with 
those of our grandfathers. The houses we inhabit, so 
to speak, are pulled down stone by stone, and yet 
rebuilt as fast as they are destroyed ; all their furniture 
and fixtures are severally removed and replaced, par- 

35 



546 THE SIXTH DAY. 

tide by particle. The whole of each edifice is recon- 
structed in the course of a brief period, and yet no eye 
can follow the process, or detect any organic change in 
the architecture of the pile. Though the vital artificers 
are constantly at work, their operations are wholly 
unfelt; we are never conscious of the separation of 
particles, or of the substitution of others. And still 
more striking is the fact that, the very organs that 
are kept in constant activity are themselves silently 
renewed without interrupting their functions for an 
instant. The' whole substance of the lungs is removed 
and replaced without the suspension of a breath. The 
heart is reproduced out of our food without losing a 
single beat, and without spilling a drop of blood. The 
eye is taken to pieces, time after time, and the windows 
of vision reglazed, without disturbing our sight for a 
moment, or obscuring the minutest object at which we 
may desire to look. And new stomachs are repeatedly 
inserted in our bodies, without our ever being compelled 
to stop eating and suspend digestion until the appa- 
ratus can be properly replaced. That the human 
body, with all its inward motions and outward activity, 
should be disintegrated, removed, and rebuilt, in this 
manner, is surely as great a marvel as if a manufactory 
with all its hundreds of wheels, scores of looms, and 
thousands of spindles, should be renewed from top to 
bottom, from year to year, without once turning off 
the steam of the engine, or slackening the speed of a 
wheel, or interrupting the flight of a shuttle, or even 



THE SIXTH DAY. 547 

attracting for once the attention of an operative. Here, 
then, assuredly, every reflecting and thoughtful man 
must lift up his heart and voice with the pious Psalm- 
ist, and say, "0 Lord, I will praise Thee, for I am 
fearfully and wonderfully made." 

HIS INTELLECTUAL POWEES. 

The foregoing bodily structure, wonderful as it is, is 
but the tent of an invisible tenant, the Spirit given by 
the inspiration of the Creator; and all its marvellous 
parts and organisms are but the tools and instruments 
provided for the use of that spirit. In the employment 
of this immortal mind all this sensitive apparatus finds 
its appropriate use, and its highest end fulfilled. All 
the marvels of its intricate and beautiful mechanism 
are of value only in the service of the soul. As he, 
therefore, who occupies the house is more honorable 
than the house, so this spirit of man is of a far nobler 
nature, and presents infinitely loftier displays of crea- 
tive wisdom and power, than the body which it 
inhabits. 

In man, the mind or spirit is the seat of the 
intellectual faculties; and the special dwelling place 
of that mind is the brain. Here, in the silent recesses 
of the brow, it holds its court, and maintains in cease- 
less activity all the noble and marvellous powers of its 
being ; — here it employs its ever-active Reflection ; here 
Reason conducts its labored processes; here Memory 
lays up its treasures of observation and experience; 



548 THE SIXTH DAY, 

here Imagination spreads her airy wings, and Genius 
creates her teeming wonders. From beneath the dome 
of this sacred temple the immortal spirit looks up, 
adoring, to the Great and Glorious God, from whom it 
has proceeded, and to whom it shall return. 

From the brain, the Mind's habitation, proceed 
nerves to every organ, and to every portion of the 
system ; these nerves are found to be double, or com- 
posed of two threads closely wrapped together; along 
the one, as by telegraphic wire, the mind sends forth 
its commands of motion to every member and muscle ; 
and along the other are conveyed back to the mind, in 
a similar manner, the impressions, pleasant or painful, 
received by any and all the organs and parts of the 
body. Thus the indwelling spirit is placed in sensible 
and perceptible communication with the external world. 
Through the avenues of the five senses it becomes 
acquainted with whatever has form, weight, color, taste, 
or smell. From these external objects, singly or in 
combination, the mind is continually taking impres- 
sions, and exercises upon them its comparing and 
reasoning powers, and thence deduces its ideas of 
unity and number; of time and space; of order, pro- 
portion, and similitude ; of truth, wisdom, power, 
obligation, succession, cause, effect, etc. Thus the 
indwelling mind proceeds in its observation from object 
to object, and scene to scene; and by comparison, 
analysis, and combination of these, ever advances to 
new ideas, new inferences, and new conclusions. " The 



THE SIXTH DAY. 549 

mind has a class of powers which thus elaborate the 
materials or facts acquired into an infinite variety of 
cognitions and judgments. Nor is there a greater 
difference between the flax in its raw state, and the 
fine linen of exquisite pattern constructed from it; 
between the stone when taken from the quarry, and 
the marble statue into which it is wrought, — than 
there is between man's primary knowledge through 
the senses and the consciousness, and those lofty com- 
parisons, and refined abstractions, and linked ratio- 
cinations, which he is able to construct by his higher 
intellectual faculties." * 

All this mental activity, however, would avail but 
little, if the mind did not possess the power of retaining 
the acquisitions thus made; for, in that case, former 
impressions would perpetually yield to those coming 
after, and be thereby as rapidly effaced as acquired. 
Increase in knowledge and wisdom would be impos- 
sible. Hence the Creator has furnished the human 
mind with the all-important faculty of Memory, or the 
power of retaining thoughts and impressions once 
gained. To this faculty belong two things deserving 
equally our admiration and gratitude. 

The simple power of retaining impressions was not 
sufficient ; the welfare of man required that it should 
be the power of preserving them beyond the immediate 
sphere of consciousness — of storing them away, as it 
were, within a secret repository. This is a most 

* McCosh. 



550 THE SIXTH DAY. 

important feature of Memory. If all thoughts and 
impressions gained were ever consciously present in 
the mind, ever pressing equally upon its attention, it 
would soon become utterly oppressed, and incapable of 
close reasoning, or fixed study, on any one particular 
subject. Consciousness would sink, and mental energy 
perish, under the accumulating burden. The power 
of storing away ideas gained beyond the sphere of 
consciousness is, therefore, a most wise and important 
provision. 

Equally admirable and important is the power by 
which we can reproduce, or call up from this treasury, 
facts and truths as we need them. This power is 
properly called Recollection. But for this, the stores of 
memory would have remained irrevocably beyond the 
sphere of consciousness, and might as well have never 
been laid up there. But now, though they may lie 
dormant and latent there for months and years, they 
can, with greater or less facility, be quickened into 
living knowledge, and thus past experience be applied 
to present pursuits. And how admirable the laws of 
association, by which recollection is aided in bringing 
again before us the knowledge formerly acquired, at 
the very time when it is most profitable that it should 
return. A value is thus given to experience, which 
otherwise would not be worthy of the name. 

To appreciate these arrangements of our mental 
constitution, and to see the Divine wisdom and good- 
ness in them, we need but reflect for a moment what 



THE SIXTH DAY. 551 

manner of beings we should be if devoid of memory 
and recollection. Without these we should be ever 
learning, and yet remain equally ignorant. An object, 
or a truth, brought before us for the hundredth time, 
would be as new and strange to us as if it had never 
before engaged our attention. "We had need every 
morning of a new introduction to our nearest and 
most familiar friends. The advantages of practice or 
experience would fade away as rapidly as achieved. 
In short, imagination cannot picture all the evils and 
disabilities of man destitute of memory. Life would 
be mere inanity; existence would not be desirable. 
It is the power of preserving and reproducing scenes 
and thoughts and feelings which have passed away, 
that gives value to all our other powers and suscepti- 
bilities, intellectual and moral; all science is its pro- 
duct, and life owes to it all its interests and joys. Its 
incessant operation from infancy, treasuring up the 
fair images of parents, brothers and sisters, and all 
their offices of affection and kindness, constitutes the 
bond that holds together families and friends. Every 
talent by which we excel, every vivid feeling by which 
we are animated, owes its force and existence to this 
faculty. We love and hate, we desire and fear, we 
seek what is good and avoid what is evil, because we 
remember the character, the tendency, or the properties 
of like objects and occurrences which we formerly 
observed. By memory we live the past over again ; 
and in bestowing this gift upon us, God hath more 
than doubled our existence. 



552 THE SIXTH DAY. 

There is another feature of memory that specially 
demands our notice. It was the opinion of Lord Bacon 
that nothing is entirely lost from the memory which 
has once been given to its charge, but virtually exists, 
and may, under certain circumstances, be restored in 
all its original vividness. Many other able writers 
think the same. There are numerous well-attested 
facts that go far to support this opinion, and, perhaps, 
something in every individual's experience. To illus- 
trate this — We may have spent a season in a certain 
locality, and then left it. Years many have rolled 
away since ; new scenes and situations have occupied 
us ; all we saw and felt and experienced there, appear 
wholly lost in the darkness of oblivion. All these 
years not a trace occurs to the mind. But suddenly 
some unexpected event, some trifling occurrence, some 
intonation of voice, or some darting sensation arouses 
the soul, and gives a wholly new and vigorous turn to 
its meditations, and the long-forgotten locality, with 
all its scenes and circumstances, is brought at once 
clearly before the mind. "At such a moment, we are 
astonished at the novel revelations that are made, the 
recollections that are called forth, the resurrections of 
withered hopes and perished sorrows, of scenes and 
companionships that seemed to be utterly lost." 

" Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain. 
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! 
Each stamps its image as the other flies." 



THE SIXTH DAY. 553 

The power of Recollection depends much upon the 
state of the physical system ; in certain conditions of 
the brain it is marvellously quickened. A servant girl 
in Germany, twenty-five years old, who could neither 
read nor write, in the paroxysms of a fever, commenced 
repeating fluently passages of Latin, Greek, and He- 
brew, which passages, as was afterward ascertained, 
she had only overheard a clergyman read in the early 
days of her childhood. This surprising fact, and others 
like it, render highly probable the conclusion of Cole- 
ridge, " that all thoughts are, in themselves, imperish- 
able." Again : the same wonderful mental activity 
has often been experienced at the point of drowning ; 
persons rescued from this situation have stated that 
their whole past life, with its thousand minute incidents, 
has almost simultaneously passed before them, and been 
viewed as in a living panorama. Scenes and situations 
long gone by, and associates not seen for years, and, 
perhaps, buried and dissolved in the grave, came rush- 
ing in upon the field of intellectual vision in all the 
activity and distinctness of real existence. Have we 
not, then, in these astonishing facts a strong evidence 
that of all committed to the keeping of memory, 
nothing is absolutely forgotten ? And are we not also 
here presented with a startling admonition of wha,t 
will take place with each of us at the last day ? The 
power of reminiscence may be enfeebled, may even 
slumber, but it does not die. At the judgment day, 
we have reason to apprehend, it will awake in irre- 



554 THE SIXTH DAY. 

pressible energy, and summon all deeds, all thoughts, 
all feelings, from their hidden recesses, and will present 
before us, as in a clear mirror, the whole of life, as 
spent among men on earth. 

In the present life, memory gathers and treasures up 
its stores, for the most part, for the service of the 
intellect, and from them this faculty educes many new 
ideas. The reasoning power is the great fountain of 
internal knowledge, and the main agency of progress 
in every department of human pursuit. By its pene- 
trating reflections, by its patient tracing of cause and 
effect, by its power of analysis and combination, by its 
ingenious experiments and rigorous demonstrations, 
has been reared the vast and ever-extending temple 
of science and art. Step by step, and link by link, 
the intellect of man has carried its calculations to the 
utmost depths of space and time. Its achievements, 
notwithstanding all the evils and disadvantages of our 
fallen state, are truly wonderful. It has explored and 
contemplated every scene and object of creation within 
its reach — has sounded the depths of the earth, and 
counted the cycles of its duration — has studied and 
dissected and classified the myriads of its animal and 
vegetable productions — has delved into the mountains, 
and plunged into the caverns of our globe, and inquired 
into the age and origin of its rocks, minerals, gems and 
fossils — has analyzed the invisible atmosphere, arrested 
the lightning in its course, and dissected the sun-beam 
in its descent — has invented instruments that seize the 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 555 

pencil of light, and with it depict a landscape, or paint 
a portrait; and others that bring distant stars near, 
and make the moon even a familiar neighbor; and 
others still that reveal a world of living wonders in a 
drop of water, or an atom of dust — has contrived 
means to communicate its thoughts across seas and 
continents with more certainty and speed than if 
endowed with the voice of thunder and provided with 
the pinions of the eagle — has evoked a power from the 
limpid water surpassing that of the fabled gods, and 
set it to work machinery that drive his ships, draw 
his cars, grind his corn, weave his garments, print his 
books, and serve him in a thousand other ways — has, 
by chains of thought, and flights of demonstration, 
ascended the empyrean, and traced the orbits, weighed 
the masses, and determined the velocities of revolving 
worlds ; " and though it has not been allowed to man 
to grasp with an arm of flesh the products of other 
worlds, or tread upon the pavement of gigantic planets, 
he has been enabled to scan with more than an eagle's 
eye, the mighty creations in the bosom of space — to 
march intellectually over the mosaics of sidereal sys- 
tems, and to follow the adventurous Phaeton in a 
chariot that can never be overturned." * 

To the capacity of the human mind for knowledge 
there seems to be hardly a limit. The progress it 
makes during the brief period of life is often great. 
What a wide interval between the mind of Newton in 

* Chalmers. 



556 THE SIXTH DAY. 

his cradle, and his mind at the close of his sublime 
career! But the greatest attainments of man, here, 
afford no measure, perhaps give but a faint idea, of 
what he will be hereafter. As every accession of 
knowledge prepares the way for other and higher 
accessions, and as the memory will lose nothing of its 
garnered treasures, who can conceive what man will 
become in the course of future years — in the lapse of 
unending ages — in a state of mental vigor, and un- 
clouded holiness ? What a magnificent, what a glorious 
prospect, to view him advancing along the path of 
immortal existence, ever augmenting in capacity as he 
drinks from the inexhaustible fountain of knowledge 
and wisdom, close by the throne of God ! 

HIS EMOTIONAL CONSTITUTION. 

Having glanced at the perceptive, retentive and 
reasoning powers of man, it will be in place and of 
interest to devote a moment to contemplate his Emo- 
tional nature. This is a most important department 
of his mental endowments. We can conceive of man 
being created with all the foregoing intellectual faculties, 
yet without any of his present emotive susceptibilities ; 
but in that case, he would obviously have been a very 
different, and a very inferior being, compared with 
what he now is. It is our emotional capacities that 
impart to life all its peculiar and ever-refreshing in- 
terests. By our intellectual faculties, we are mere 
spectators of the world with its living inhabitants and 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 557 

varied wonders; by our emotional powers, we are 
admirers of nature, lovers of men, adorers of God. All 
the progressive springs of humanity take their rise in 
our emotional being. 

The all-wise and beneficent Creator, therefore, has 
constituted us with a variety of emotions; with the 
emotion of alarm to incite from danger — of natural 
anger, to make the timid brave, the weak vigorous, 
and the old for the moment young again, when 
unjustly assailed — of complacency, shedding cheerful- 
ness and sunshine through the soul — of sorrow, dif- 
fusing its softening and chastening spirit over the mind 
— of joy, inspiring happiness, rapture and praise — of 
humility, to sink self into its appropriate obscurity — of 
love, the parent of tenderness, sympathy, friendship 
and affectionate attachment, and the richest and the 
worthiest outgoing of man's spiritual activity — of taste, 
appreciating and delighting in. harmony, proportion, 
beauty and sublimity, and constituting the most de- 
lightful spring of refinement and elevated progress — 
and of hope, ever embellishing with bright visions 
the dim future, and quickening to their pursuit. 
Unendowed with these emotions, what would have 
been the character and condition of man ? How blank 
and unbeneficent would life have been as a mere round 
of passionless intellectuality. Where would have been 
all that now makes its charm, and renders it, even 
amid the gathering darkness of death, still dear? 
Where would have been all the most exquisite produc- 



558 T HE SIXTH DAY. 

tions of literature and art, without passion to portray, 
interest to kindle, or taste to admire? Where had 
been the endearments of home, and the communion of 
friends, without the sweet bonds of sympathy and 
love? In the bestowment, then, of the combined 
cognitive and emotive activity of our nature, we behold 
in a striking light both the wisdom and the goodness 
of God toward His creature man. 

HIS MORAL NATURE. 

Over all the foregoing powers and affections of man 
has been set, both as judge and governor, the faculty 
of Conscience, or that mental capacity by which we 
instantly and irresistibly feel the difference between 
right and wrong. This is the crowning faculty in man. 
Its peculiar office is to arbitrate and direct all our other 
powers and propensities according to rectitude, so far 
as that is apprehended by the understanding. Its voice 
is always and everywhere distinct and authoritative on 
the side of truth and righteousness ; hence it has been, 
denominated "the vicegerent of God in the soul of 
man." The authority of conscience is sacred and 
supreme; and it is empowered to pronounce censure 
and applause, and to administer rewards and punish- 
ments. It follows up every act and exercise of man 
with instant approbation or condemnation. If its 
dictates are cheerfully and implicitly obeyed, it bestows 
in reward the pleasure of inward complacency and 
self-approbation; but if its impulses are resisted or 



THE SIXTH DAY. 559 

disregarded, it inflicts the pain of a sense of guilt, or 
the feeling of remorse. 

Though the authority of conscience is supreme, its 
power is not. The perverse force of the will may 
resist its commands, and the clamor and turbulence of 
passion may drown its voice ; no amount of violence, 
however, can banish it from its seat in the soul. It 
will still hold the transgressor in its grasp, and, sooner 
or later, will bring him trembling before its judgment 
seat, even when he would seem to have broken loose 
from all its restraints, and completely overborne its 
power. Eventually it will assert its sovereignty with 
a fearful potency, even though its throne may have 
been invaded, and its sceptre for a season smitten to 
the ground. Nor can the offender escape its retri- 
bution ; let him efface every visible stain of his guilt, 
and let him flee from the scene of his crimes, it will 
still go with him, and lay upon him its direful scourge 
at the distance of half the globe. 

The existence of conscience within us, it has been 
observed, is an evidence for the righteousness of God, 
which keeps its ground amid all the disorders and 
aberrations to which human nature is liable. For, as 
the existence of a regulator in a disordered watch 
shows the design of its maker that its movements 
should harmonize with time, so conscience shows the 
design of our Creator that all our movements should 
harmonize with truth and righteousness. 

It is conscience that gives to man his moral worth 



560 THE SIXTH DA Y. 

and dignity ; and it is this that bestows upon human 
life all its sacredness and moral beauty. "Apart from 
this," says Tulloch, " man would have been but little 
above the brutes around him, having no nobleness of 
piety in his heart, and no long-suffering love mingling 
its purifying fires in his lot. Conscience is a revelation 
of the Supreme God in man. And it brings man not 
only into converse with goodness, but relates him to it, 
as the power which binds him in his daily life, and 
would guide him to daily happiness." 

All the faculties and affections now surveyed belong 
to, and reside in, the mind or immortal spirit of man. 
And in the first created man, as he came out of his 
Maker's hand, all were pure, perfect, and harmonious. 
Adam, as he first stood before his Creator, was a 
perfect man — perfect physically, mentally, and morally. 
Sense, intellect, affections and conscience were all in 
their right proportions, and in their due subordination ; 
none deficient, none in excess. His was a perfectly 
sound mind in a perfectly sound body. Every emotion, 
passion, and propensity harmonized with conscience 
and with each other ; while all their varied activities 
were but a succession of varied pleasures. In the 
whole exercise of his faculties, in all the feelings of his 
heart, in all his words, and in all his actions, there was 
a perfect conformity to the mind and will of God. 
And his love to that transcendently great and glorious 
Being was a perennial source of the most sublime and 
exuberant joy. And all the various displays of the 



THE SIXTH DAY. 561 

Divine wisdom, power and goodness in the scenes and 
objects around him, in the animate and inanimate, 
were illustrious sources of pleasure to his mind. 
Wherever his eye turned its glance, God was seen; 
and wherever He was seen, He was seen with inex- 
pressible delight. The endlessly diversified forms of 
beauty, grandeur and glory in the new creation, were 
ever regarded by Him as exhibitions of infinite excel- 
lence, delighting and improving and ennobling his 
immortal spirit. Thus did God create man in His 
own image, and after His own likeness. 

HIS HELP-MEET. 

To complete the happiness of man God created for 
him an Help-meet — male and female created He them. 
The end and object of this arrangement was not only 
the multiplication of # the species, but also the enhance- 
ment of happiness to each, by the interchange of those 
amiable affections, and those offices of sympathy and 
kindness which should arise from the inherent diversity 
of character in the sexes. The one was intended as 
the complement of the other : to man was given a 
firmer and stronger frame, and a mind more vigorous, 
more patient of toil, and more equal to difficulties ; to 
woman, a more delicate and beautiful form, and gentler 
and lovelier affections, more refined tastes, and more 
tender sympathies. Thus the woman found in the 
man what was lacking in herself; and the man in the 
woman what would complete his own character; and 



562 THE SIXTH DAY. 

thus, too, each saw in the other qualities to be esteemed, 
admired, and loved ; while the reciprocation of these 
tender feelings and affections served to double, and 
more than double the bliss of both. 

To enhance and elevate the social happiness of His 
earthly offspring, the Creator bestowed on them one 
other gift of immeasurable worth and importance — the 
gift of Language. Of all the living tenants of the 
new-made world, speech was given to man alone, as he 
alone had reason to employ it ; and it is impossible to 
estimate the advantages and the pleasure that flowed 
to the happy pair through this faculty. It is in itself 
a most striking display of the Divine wisdom that 
contrived it. In the wonderful system of man have 
been inserted two or three little organs, so exquisitely 
contrived, which, by a few scarcely perceptible motions, 
"can shape the air into sounds, which express the 
kinds, properties, actions and relations of things, under 
thousands of aspects, in forms infinitely more recondite 
than those in which they present themselves to his 
senses." * 

REFLECTIONS. 

What a concourse of wonders have we now seen in 
connection with this the last and crowning work of 
the Creator's hand — his erect and noble form — his 
expressive countenance, and hand of instinct powers — 
his soft and delicate skin without, and his marvellous 

* Whewell. 



THE SIXTH DA Y. 563 

mechanism and vital chemistry within — his admirable 
senses, and keen perception — his brain, the sacred 
temple of the soul, with its telegraphic nerves in in* 
stant and uninterrupted communication with every 
part — his powers of memory, reflection, reasoning and 
imagination — his unlimited capacity for knowledge, and 
the astonishing achievements of his intellect — his varied 
and powerful emotions, enkindling vital interest and 
impelling to ceaseless activity — his unslumbering con- 
science, God's faithful witness in the soul, always and 
instantly declaring in favor of truth and righteousness 
— and the sweet harmony of all his parts and powers 
and faculties with the will Divine. " How illustrious 
a being was man as he came from the hands of his 
Maker! With what dignified attributes was he en- 
dued. For what high pursuits was he qualified. To 
what sublime enjoyments was he destined. In him 
was found, in an important sense, the end of this 
earthly system. Without man, the world, its furni- 
ture, and its inhabitants, would have existed in vain. 
Whatever of skill, power and goodness were displayed 
by the creative Hand, there was, before the formation 
of man, none to understand, admire, love, enjoy, or 
praise the Creator. The earth was clothed with 
beauty ; the landscape unfolded its delightful scenes ; 
the sky spread its magnificent curtains; the sun 
travelled in the greatness of his strength; the moon 
and the stars solemnly displayed the glorious wisdom 
of their Author, without an eye to gaze, or a heart to 



564 THE SIXTH DAY. 

contemplate. A magnificent habitation was, indeed, 
built and furnished ; but no tenant was found. Brutes 
were the only beings which could enjoy at all, and 
their enjoyment was limited to animal gratification. 

But man was separated from all earthly creatures, 
by being formed an intelligent being. His mind could 
trace the skill and glory of the Creator in the works of 
His hands; and, from the nature of the work, could 
understand, admire and adore the Workman. His 
thoughts could rise to God, and wander through eter- 
nity. The universe to him was a mirror, by which he 
saw reflected every moment, in every place, and in 
every form, the beauty, greatness, and excellence of 
Jehovah. To Him his affections and his praises rose, 
more sweet than the incense of the morning, and made 
no unhappy harmony with the loftier music of heaven. 
He was the priest of this great world, and offered the 
morning and evening sacrifice *of thanksgiving for the 
whole earthly creation. Of this creation he was also 
the lord, the rightful, just and benevolent sovereign. 
The subjection of the inferior creatures to him was 
voluntary, and productive of nothing but order, peace 
and happiness. With these endowments and privileges, 
he was placed in Paradise, no unworthy resemblance of 
heaven itself; and surrounded by 6 every thing which 
was good for food, or pleasant to the eye.' In an 
atmosphere impregnated with life; amid streams in 
which life flowed; amid fruits in which life bloomed 
and ripened ; encircled by ever-living beauty and mag- 



THE SIXTH DAY. 565 

nificence ; peaceful within ; safe without ; and conscious 
of immortality ; he was destined to labor only that he 
might be useful and happy, and to contemplate the 
wonders of the universe, and worship its glorious 
Author, as his prime and professional employment. 
He was an image of the invisible God, created to be 
like Him in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, 
His illustrious attributes; and, like Him to receive 
dominion over the works of His hands. 

In this situation, removed far from death and disease, 
from sorrow and fear, he was formed for endless im- 
provement. His mind, like that of angels, was capable 
of continual expansion, refinement and elevation ; and 
his life of perpetual exaltation in worth, usefulness and 
honor. God was his Visitor ; angels were his com- 
panions." * 



We have now reached the close of the most wonder- 
ful, most interesting, and most important chapter of 
History in the possession of man — a chapter containing 
the first written discovery that God has made of 
Himself to mankind, and in which His eternal power 
and Godhead shine forth with a light of demonstration, 
and a sublimity of grandeur, that command the pro- 
foundest homage, and most devout adoration of all His 
rational creatures. 

Looking back over the field surveyed in the fore- 
going pages; the Universe, in all its vastness and 

* D wight's Theology, Serm. xxii. 



566 THE SIXTH DAY. 

magnificence, emerging into existence; the Earth, 
assuming its beauty of form and garniture, and all its 
variety of inhabitants in sea and land and air; the 
attendant Moon, with its mystic motions and appalling 
scenery, setting forth in its ceaseless rounds ; the stu- 
pendous Sun, in the greatness of his might, balancing 
a hundred revolving worlds, and sending forth ceaseless 
streams of light and heat and attractive power to guide 
and serve them all ; and the innumerable Stars of light, 
centres of other systems of grandeur, all strewn through 
the unfathomable depths of immensity — how great and 
marvellous a work was that of Creation ! How won- 
derful and glorious must be its Divine Eternal Author ! 
What must be that Mind in which all existed in 
perfect and clear plan, " when as yet there was none 
of them !" What must be that Source of Life from 
which all intelligences, and all conscious existences, 
in all worlds have emanated ! What must be that 
Nature from which dropped, as from an overflowing 
exuberance, all that is good and beautiful and majestic 
and exalted, in the whole universe ! Who can show 
forth His greatness? Who can utter all His mighty 
acts? 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, 
and is, and is to come ! Thou art worthy to receive 
glory, and honor, and power; for Thou hast created 
all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were 
created. Amen. 

^J The End. 

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